[lint] 
| 1. | minute shreds or ravelings of yarn; bits of thread. |
| 2. | staple cotton fiber used to make yarn. |
| 3. | cotton waste produced by the ginning process. |
| 4. | a soft material for dressing wounds, procured by scraping or otherwise treating linen cloth. |
| lint (lĭnt) n.
[Middle English, variant of linet (from Old French linette, grain of flax, diminutive of lin, flax) or from Medieval Latin linteum, lint (from Latin, linen cloth), both from Latin līnum, flax; see l  no- in Indo-European roots.]lint'less adj., lint'y adj. |
lint
A Unix C language processor which carries out more thorough checks on the code than is usual with C compilers.
Lint is named after the bits of fluff it supposedly picks from programs. Judging by references on Usenet this term has become a shorthand for desk check at some non-Unix shops, even in languages other than C. Also used as delint.
[The Jargon File]
(1994-11-14)