1
as in volcanoes
a potentially explosive place or situation
officials sought to calm the situation, which had grown into a tinderbox
Synonyms & Similar Words
Relevance
2
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
Synonyms & Similar Words
Example Sentences
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.
Read More
Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of tinderboxes
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
John P. O’Brien, Mercury News, 13 Sep. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for tinderboxes
Noun
-
The find confirms that tool-using humans could have witnessed the eruption from a safe distance; survivors recorded the event in the story told by the Gunditjmara people who have lived continuously in the region of Australia’s youngest volcanoes.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
22 Oct. 2025
-
The Highlands The Highlands are an untamed region full of volcanoes, black deserts, and crater lakes.—
Gwen Nicol,
Travel + Leisure,
22 Oct. 2025
Noun
-
Amazon's cloud arm, Amazon Web Services, suffered an outage that took down sites such as Reddit and Snapchat, plunging millions, including yours truly, into existential crises.—
Yeo Boon Ping,
CNBC,
21 Oct. 2025
-
In generic financial crises, that often appear quite suddenly, many individuals, businesses or governments cannot meet their financial obligations, whether payments of interest or principal on loans or simply paying for goods purchased or even wages due.—
Edward Lotterman,
Twin Cities,
19 Oct. 2025
Noun
-
Celine Song’s sophomore feature follows Dakota Johnson as a New York City matchmaker named Lucy, who finds herself at a romantic crossroads.—
Abigail Lee,
Variety,
22 Oct. 2025
-
In 1981, Bruce Springsteen found himself at a crossroads.—
David Fear,
Rolling Stone,
22 Oct. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Tinderboxes.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/tinderboxes. Accessed 29 Oct. 2025.
Copy CitationLove words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridged
Share