matchstick
Americannoun
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a short, slender piece of flammable wood used in making matches.
-
something that suggests a matchstick, as in thinness or fragility.
noun
adjective
-
made with or as if with matchsticks
a matchstick model
-
(esp of figures drawn with single strokes) thin and straight
matchstick men
Etymology
Origin of matchstick
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
He also ran a clothing business and a matchstick factory.
From BBC • Jul. 12, 2025
“Walk Ventura’s beaches and, in the distance, it wavers like a child’s matchstick project,” the bureau states on its website.
From Seattle Times • Feb. 1, 2024
The tidy grid of streets around it, laid out in the 1820s, now cuts through matchstick heaps of disorder.
From New York Times • Dec. 16, 2021
In the eastern province of Camarines Sur, a light tower snapped like a matchstick in a video posted on Facebook by a local member of congress.
From Washington Post • Nov. 1, 2020
Nine plucked a burnt matchstick from the rubbish and gnawed on the end.
From "The Undead Fox of Deadwood Forest" by Aubrey Hartman
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
