Thesaurus results for TINDERBOXES

tinderboxes

noun

plural of tinderbox

as in volcanoes

a potentially explosive place or situation officials sought to calm the situation, which had grown into a tinderbox

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as in crises

a time or state of affairs requiring prompt or decisive action while the country's prime minister was meeting with the U.S. president, a political tinderbox was igniting at home

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Example Sentences

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Recent Examples of tinderboxes The Industrial Revolution, supercharged by the Civil War, transformed Northeastern cities into denser and denser wooden tinderboxes filled with tons of humans more than capable of accidentally generating sparks. —

Noah Haggerty, Los Angeles Times, 2 Apr. 2026 Unlike natural thinning, large fire-resilient trees are typically high-graded for felling in Jackson, creating tinderboxes of 300 to 500 mostly juvenile trees per acre. —

John P. O’Brien, Mercury News, 13 Sep. 2025

Recent Examples of Synonyms for tinderboxes

Noun

Audiences will witness how life finds a way to survive on a planet where meteors fall, super volcanoes erupt, seas boil and the land moves.

— Erin Lassner, HollywoodReporter, 11 June 2026
Its dark terrain is constantly changing due to lava flows from Kilauea or Mauna Loa – two of the most active volcanoes in the world, according to the National Park Service website.

— Alia Beard Rau, USA Today, 10 June 2026