A box in which tinder was kept (also usually the flint and steel with which the spark was struck, and sometimes the brimstone matches with which the flame was raised).
1530. Palsgr., 283/2. Tunder boxe, boytte de fusil.
1580. Hakluyt, Voy. (1599), I. 442. Tinder boxes with Steele, Flint, & Matches and Tinder.
1612. [see TINDER β].
1697. Collier, Ess., II. (1703), 84. One would think we might … with a good flint and steel strike consciousness into a Tinder-box.
1759. Dumaresque, in Phil. Trans., LI. 485. They make use of a wooden machine (instead of a tinder-box), to light fire with.
1836. Marryat, Japhet, xlvii. I … found a tinderbox. I struck a light.
c. 1840–5. (Tunder-box in use in N. Lincolnsh.).
1893. Leland, Mem., I. 47. The use of the tinderbox and brimstone was universal.
b. fig. A thing or person likened to a tinder-box, esp. as being very ‘inflammable’ or a source of heated strife.
1598. Shaks., Merry W., I. iii. 27. I am glad I am so acquit of this Tinderbox.
1608. Sylvester, Du Bartas, II. iv. V. Decay, 12. Huff-pufft Ambition, tinderbox of warre, Downfall of Angels, Adam’s murderer.
1860. Janesville (WI) Daily Gaz., 16 Jan., 3/2. The ‘flare up’ upon such an accident [exposure of a revolver] happening to Mr. Haskins, shows what a tinder box the house [of representatives] is, and the danger which exists that at any time the excited feelings of members may lead them into a personal contest.
1839. J. MacDonald, in Tweedie, Life, iv. (1849), 335. The tinder-box of mortality within me may at any moment take fire.
1897. Current Hist. (Buffalo, N.Y.), VII. 313. One of the chief danger-points in Europe, a veritable tinder-box.
c. attrib. and Comb.
a. 1704. T. Brown, Lett. to Genil. & Ladies, Wks. 1709, III. II. 107. A Couple of Tinderbox-cryers.
1856. Kane, Arct. Expl., I. xxix. 379. He struck them together after the true tinder-box fashion.
