How to Use tinderbox in a Sentence

tinderbox

noun

• That old house is really a tinderbox.
• In the past few years the sparks of jihad have been struck in this tinderbox.
  — The Economist, 12 July 2018
• The extreme heat and drought have turned much of the West into a tinderbox.
  — Scott Wilson, Washington Post, 19 June 2021
• In the Texas Panhandle, the ground is akin to a tinderbox, with months having passed since the last drop of rain fell.
  — Pedram Javaheri and Derek Van Dam, CNN, 15 Dec. 2021
• That means most of the country had turned into a tinderbox.
  — Washington Post, 13 Jan. 2020
• Brown said the state as a whole is a tinderbox with the most extreme fire conditions in three decades.
  — oregonlive, 10 Sep. 2020
• That left much of the state a tinderbox when hundreds of lightning strikes scorched the countryside last week.
  — Paul Douglas, Star Tribune, 27 Aug. 2020
• Portland has been a tinderbox for some time now and the election of Donald Trump has been a slow-burning fuse.
  — Charles P. Pierce, Esquire, 30 May 2017
• A months-long drought leaves their town a tinderbox, and suddenly, much of the coastline is burning.
  — Jocelyn McClurg, USA TODAY, 29 Apr. 2017
• The town was a tinderbox well before the first week of March 1770 when—ill humor pooling all around—a brawl erupted steps from Adams’ front door.
  — Stacy Schiff, Smithsonian Magazine, 21 Sep. 2022
• But this year, drought worsened by climate change turned the wetlands into a tinderbox and the fires raged out of control.
  — Scott Reinhard, New York Times, 13 Oct. 2020
• People who had been inside called it a deathtrap and a tinderbox.
  — The Mercury News, The Denver Post, 5 June 2017
• This land has become a tinderbox after decades of drought and climate change.
  — Erik Kain, Forbes, 21 Feb. 2023
• The Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif has long been regarded as a tinderbox, and with good reason.
  — Yasmeen Serhan, Time, 4 Jan. 2023
• Winds gusting through a vast tinderbox of undergrowth made the fire balloon in size and merge with a smaller blaze.
  — New York Times, 22 July 2021
• And a two-state solution has been viewed globally as a long-term answer to douse the tinderbox that is the Middle East.
  — John Bacon, USA TODAY, 30 Jan. 2024
• Hawaii had long been a tinderbox of colonial tensions; Maunakea simply lit the flame.
  — Trisha Kehaulani Watson-Sproat, Vox, 24 July 2019
• Even then, there is a difference between living in the Bay Area and living in the tinderbox that the wine country has become.
  — Dave Eggers, The New Yorker, 11 Oct. 2020
• The schools mess alone has baked in Democratic losses, notably in states such as New Jersey, a tinderbox of rage over closed schools.
  — Daniel Henninger, WSJ, 27 Apr. 2022
• Scholar Robert Litwak agrees—but also invokes 1914 Europe and the tinderbox that sparked a world war.
  — Richard Fontaine, The Atlantic, 3 Oct. 2017
• Until the end of the Hamas-Israel conflict, diplomats and observers of many stripes will continue to watch the tinderbox here very closely.
  — Tamara Qiblawi, CNN, 12 Oct. 2023
• And when somebody’s kid comes home saying slavery set off that tinderbox, there’s going to be a meeting.
  — al, 16 June 2021
• At the time of the gathering in San Luis Potosí, Mexico was a tinderbox.
  — Geraldo Cadava, The New Yorker, 5 Oct. 2022
• Three people have been killed and more than 150 homes destroyed in the state of New South Wales in recent days as fires ripped through areas rendered tinderbox dry by a two-year drought.
  — Emily Cadman, Bloomberg.com, 10 Nov. 2019
• But no one is going to come out of this romantic tinderbox unscathed.
  — Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times, 24 Oct. 2023
• Texas has become a tinderbox because of weeks of extreme heat, with little relief in sight.
  — Diana Leonard, Anchorage Daily News, 14 Aug. 2023
• But ignoring the tinderbox that is our state and our planet invites more madness, not just for the Cassandras but for us all.
  — Elizabeth Weil, ProPublica, 28 Aug. 2020
• From the vantage of 2021, the novel is a double portent: a dystopian fantasy and an early spark in the tinderbox of the curriculum wars.
  — Katy Waldman, The New Yorker, 26 Dec. 2021
• Wildfires spread across Spain, France and other parts of Europe as torrid heat mixed with months of little rain to make the continent a tinderbox.
  — Eric Sylvers, WSJ, 17 July 2022
• Accumulated fuel, like dead trees and brush, becomes a tinderbox ready to burn when combined with drought.
  — Doyle Rice, USA TODAY, 26 Apr. 2024

Last Updated: 12 Nov 2024