How to Use powder keg in a Sentence

powder keg

noun

• Political instability has made the region a powder keg.
• Forests across the West are now so overgrown they’ve been called powder kegs.
  — Washington Post, 16 Oct. 2017
• Worse, the streets of Seattle are filled with protesters and cops, i.e. a powder keg ready to blow.
  — David Fear, Rolling Stone, 5 Jan. 2022
• Tichenor’s bad call lit a powder keg within Bogaerts that has been ready to blow for a while.
  — Peter Abraham, BostonGlobe.com, 19 Aug. 2022
• There’s one by us that’s just a powder keg for class differences.
  — Lacey Rose, The Hollywood Reporter, 16 Aug. 2023
• Not content to stop there, Mr. Netanyahu reached for two more powder kegs.
  — Dan Balilty, New York Times, 1 Mar. 2020
• His idea of the perfect song was a powder keg giving off sparks, one that anybody could belt out loud.
  — Rob Sheffield, Rolling Stone, 21 Apr. 2021
• To be fair, the powder keg triumvirate of Kramer, Bangs and Marsh alone was a filmmaker’s dream.
  — John Benson, cleveland, 5 Aug. 2020
• South of the Frisco Railroad tracks, though, white Tulsa was a racist powder keg waiting to explode.
  — Scott Cantrell, Dallas News, 3 June 2021
• One drug needle shared by someone with HIV could easily be the match to this powder keg.
  — Laura Ungar, The Courier-Journal, 14 Dec. 2017
• The region has historically been a powder keg and seems on the verge of more upheavals.
  — Jason Daley, Smithsonian, 8 Mar. 2018
• Batman is dead, and a powder keg has ignited Gotham City without the Dark Knight to protect it.
  — Marc Berman, Forbes, 19 May 2022
• The former Yugoslavia — the last European region to succumb to armed conflict, in the civil wars of the 1990s — could again prove a powder keg.
  — Scott Roxborough, The Hollywood Reporter, 2 Mar. 2022
• Oregon is a powder keg of militancy right now, and its fuse is now burning bright and hot.
  — Kim Kelly, The New Republic, 27 Sep. 2019
• Los Angeles was already a powder keg just waiting to explode that week, and the verdict led to the L.A. riots.
  — Paula Rogo, Essence, 14 Oct. 2019
• That’s a new one for Rahm, the 28-year-old Spaniard who was frequently a powder keg of emotion earlier in his career when things went awry on the golf course.
  — Dan Wolken, USA TODAY, 6 Apr. 2023
• The Democrats’ boycott of a second special legislative session has turned the Texas House into a powder keg.
  — Dallas News, 10 Aug. 2021
• The place is a powder keg, the tense crossroads for Muslims, Christians and Jews in a time of intense sectarian conflict.
  — Barbara Vandenburgh, azcentral, 11 Apr. 2018
• The county took that step even though the jail has recently been a powder keg, where eight people died in 2018, including some by suicide.
  — cleveland, 5 Mar. 2020
• But there’s a sense of urgency in the second, more precise verse that not only sums up the track, but serves as a microcosm of the powder keg that is Kendrick’s sophomore album.
  — cleveland, 8 June 2020
• Mamie’s testimony scene in the courtroom, for instance — a seven-page powder keg of grief, frustration and rage — is shot in one long take.
  — Sarah Bahr, New York Times, 24 Oct. 2022
• Roller’s victory, aided by aim assist, set off a powder keg.
  — Ethan Davison, Washington Post, 16 Oct. 2020
• Though the powder keg image is powerful, in reality very few wars start this way.
  — Dan Reiter, Washington Post, 11 Jan. 2018
• Or the new Iranian prowess could prove to be a powder keg that is ignited by reckless militants in one or more camps.
  — Dp Opinion, The Denver Post, 28 Oct. 2019
• Credit Jason Garrett with keeping the lid on a potential powder keg and getting the Cowboys off to a fresh start following the bye.
  — Clarence E. Hill Jr., star-telegram, 23 Oct. 2017
• That would be just a teaser for the human traffic jam inside the tunnel, though, a powder keg of drunk, impatient people jammed into a too-small egress.
  — Dylan Owens, The Know, 9 June 2019
• That all creates a powder keg under the current circumstances.
  — Isaac Chotiner, The New Yorker, 15 Oct. 2023
• The play begins with a gathering of skeptical seekers reluctant to engage in this powder keg of a room.
  — David John Chávez, The Mercury News, 7 Feb. 2024
• One day, to everyone's astonishment, someone drops a match in the powder keg and everything blows up.
  — Reggie Jackson, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 4 June 2020
• The Taliban is back in power in Afghanistan and Iraq remains a geopolitical powder keg, somewhat aligned to Iran’s theocratic regime.
  — Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post, 11 Oct. 2023

Last Updated: 4 Oct 2024