lightning rod
a rodlike conductor installed to divert lightning away from a structure by providing a direct path to the ground.
a person or thing that attracts and absorbs powerful and especially negative or hostile feelings, opinions, etc., thereby diverting such feelings from other targets: The unpopular supervisor served as a lightning rod for the criticism that should have been aimed at management.
Origin of lightning rod
1Words Nearby lightning rod
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use lightning rod in a sentence
Controversy followed Reed, often a golf lightning rod nicknamed “Captain America,” after Team USA lost to Europe at Le Golf National in France.
Patrick Reed hospitalized, putting FedEx Cup playoffs and Ryder Cup in doubt | Cindy Boren | August 24, 2021 | Washington PostRicardo Salles, the Brazilian environment minister who became a lightning rod for anger over deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, resigned Wednesday after allegations he obstructed a federal investigation into illegal logging.
Brazil's Controversial Environment Minister Has Quit. What Does It Mean for the Amazon? | Ciara Nugent | June 24, 2021 | TimeThe board refused to accept its role as the company’s lightning rod by kicking the decision back to Facebook.
The bill has become a lightning rod for Republican opposition, spurring claims that it is a partisan attempt to rewrite federal election laws in Democrats’ favor.
House Democrats pass sweeping elections bill as GOP legislatures push to restrict voting | Mike DeBonis | March 4, 2021 | Washington PostI don't know why he's singled out, but every time he just ends up being the lightning rod for my brothers' dirty jokes and my dad and uncle's drunken nicknames.
Carolyn Hax: Poking fun at her husband is, in fact, no fun | Carolyn Hax | January 11, 2021 | Washington Post
Second, Michelle served as a lightning rod in the sense of drawing attacks away from other reform groups.
On the top of the obelisk is a 100-ounce aluminum cap, which acts as a lightning rod.
Indeed Taubira, in particular, has been a lightning rod for opposition contempt.
The show delivered on all the spark a lightning rod host like Dunham should give off.
Lena Dunham on 'SNL' Review: Very Funny, Very Dunham-y | Kevin Fallon | March 9, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTIn 1968, Ted Nugent was a lightning rod, a personification of transformational freedom.
There he paused a moment for breath, and then climbed up the lightning-rod, hand over hand, and gained the roof.
The Rival Campers | Ruel Perley SmithBack along the wall he crawled, and, sliding down the lightning-rod, was once more on the roof of the old hotel.
The Rival Campers | Ruel Perley SmithOnly the clumsy old lightning-rod shrieking in its rusty fixtures when the wind blows.
The Open Question | Elizabeth RobinsA friend of mine in a Southern city tells me of a red-headed woodpecker that drums upon a lightning-rod on his neighbor's house.
A Year in the Fields | John BurroughsFrom this observation to the lightning rod was but a short step.
Benjamin Franklin; Self-Revealed, Volume II (of 2) | Wiliam Cabell Bruce
Scientific definitions for lightning rod
A grounded metal rod placed high on a structure to conduct electrical current from a lightning strike directly to the ground, preventing the currents from injuring people or animals or from damaging objects. Lightning rods usually have a sharp, pointed tip, since electric lines of force are more highly concentrated around pointed objects, in this case increasing the attractiveness of the rod compared with other nearby objects. See also Saint Elmo's fire.
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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