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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

tinderbox.

A small container containing flint, steel, and tinder (dry, finely-divided fibrous matter), once used to help kindle a fire.

9 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun
  1. A small container containing flint, steel, and tinder (dry, finely-divided fibrous matter), once used to help kindle a fire.

    historical
  2. A place that is so dry and hot that there is danger of fire.

    broadly
  3. A potentially dangerous situation.

    figuratively
Where this word comes from

From tinder + box, first use appears c. 1530, in the writings of John Palsgrave.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.