noun
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wood suitable for making matches
-
splinters or fragments
the bomb blew the house to matchwood
Etymology
Origin of matchwood
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.
Another time-consuming process was cleaning the match heads, but Senchukov’s art and efforts did not go unnoticed, and one Ukrainian factory now provides him with matchwood.
From Reuters
Television pictures showed buildings under water in Mexico Beach, and several properties reduced to matchwood in Panama City Beach.
From The Guardian
“The actual mailbox itself wasn’t damaged, but they reduced the post to matchwood.”
From Washington Post
Many a building was blown to matchwood because of leaking gas.
From New York Times
Japan on Friday mourns the thousands who lost their lives in a massive earthquake and tsunami five years ago that turned towns to matchwood and triggered the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.
From Reuters
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.
