How to Use tinder in a Sentence

tinder

noun
  • Forests have turned tinder dry and burned.
    — Shaun McKinnon, AZCentral.com, 26 July 2025
  • Or use a small square of duct tape—sticky side up—as a base for tinder.
    — T. Edward Nickens, Field & Stream, 28 Dec. 2020
  • The last few summers had burned like tinder, and the grass was fried, our springs on the outs.
    — Literary Hub, 22 June 2026
  • Lean kindling sticks against each other over a mound of tinder.
    — Jessica Bennett, Better Homes & Gardens, 30 Sep. 2021
  • Large parts of forests will die, and the dead trees will become tinder for wildfire.
    — Allegra Kirkland, Quartz, 18 Oct. 2019
  • Gently add more tinder to the flame, making sure to block any rain drops with your hands or body.
    — Jim Baird, Field & Stream, 1 Oct. 2020
  • Phillip glanced out the window and saw a mountainside of fresh tinder.
    — Eli Saslow, New York Times, 19 Jan. 2025
  • Australia is in the midst of a prolonged drought, making much of the land tinder dry.
    — Carrie Hutchinson, Condé Nast Traveler, 9 Jan. 2020
  • Or twist strips of duct tape into tinder sticks 6 to 8 inches long.
    — T. Edward Nickens, Field & Stream, 28 Dec. 2020
  • Twist strips of duct tape into tinder sticks 6 to 8 inches long.
    — T. Edward Nickens, Field & Stream, 9 Jan. 2017
  • To start the fire, place tinder on top of the log and allow some of it to fall into the notches.
    — Timothy Dahl, Popular Mechanics, 4 Apr. 2016
  • The massive influx of weapons added tinder to those conflicts.
    — Los Angeles Times, 6 Oct. 2019
  • Wark said this is the time of year that any snow has long since melted and there’s plenty of dry tinder on the ground.
    — Emily Sweeney, BostonGlobe.com, 15 May 2023
  • And all the snowmelt has brilliantly greened what’s often a dry, brown tinder box by this time of year.
    — Lila Seidman, Los Angeles Times, 11 Sep. 2023
  • And the more overlap, the more dry tinder there is to keep this pandemic going.
    — Alexis C. Madrigal, The Atlantic, 15 Aug. 2021
  • The extra monetary base is dry tinder or a ticking time bomb, choose your own metaphor.
    — Bill Conerly, Forbes, 25 Feb. 2021
  • Use a match to light the tinder, slowly adding the additional sticks and logs as the fire builds.
    — Nicole Harris, Parents, 25 Oct. 2023
  • Those sparks have found tinder to burn hot, and the government itself is stoking the flames.
    — John Archibald, New Yorker, 30 Oct. 2025
  • That was followed by months of extreme heat that withered the new growth and turned it into more tinder.
    — Julie Turkewitz, New York Times, 11 Oct. 2017
  • The statement said the hot air creates tinder-like brush that could fuel wildfires.
    — Julia Musto, Fox News, 6 Dec. 2020
  • Gently fold your tinder over the ember, and lightly blow into it.
    — The Editors, Field & Stream, 4 Aug. 2020
  • With the snow gone early, brown grass and bare trees made for tinder to fuel fires earlier this year.
    — Laura Schulte, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 18 June 2021
  • The fires have been driven by windy and dry conditions, scorching grass, brush and tinder.
    — Julia Musto, Fox News, 6 May 2022
  • Fire bags were used by the Dena’ina people to carry fire-making tools and tinder.
    — Author: Joaqlin Estus, Anchorage Daily News, 12 Aug. 2021
  • Few others in the lush coastal region shared his level of concern, even as drought turned the area tinder-dry.
    — NBC News, 9 Feb. 2020
  • All of this tension and anger was a tinder box waiting to be lit by the extradition law.
    — James Griffiths, CNN, 26 Aug. 2019
  • All of these videos are like tinder building up to a real place in the community.
    — Soleil Ho, San Francisco Chronicle, 5 Apr. 2021
  • As boggy soils drain to rivers and oceans in the Arctic, peaty soils will dry out and turn into tinder.
    — Carolyn Kormann, The New Yorker, 8 Aug. 2019
  • Form a tepee with three 6-inch-tall sticks, and place smaller sticks on the floor as a platform for the tinder.
    — Michael Stillwell, Popular Mechanics, 27 Mar. 2023
  • Autocrats may stoke polarization, but the tinder has to be in place for the fire to start.
    — Foreign Affairs, 19 Oct. 2021

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'tinder.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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