tinder

American  

[tin-der] / ˈtɪn dər /

noun

1. a highly flammable material or preparation formerly used for catching the spark from a flint and steel struck together for fire or light.

2. any dry substance that readily takes fire from a spark.

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tinder British  

/ ˈtɪndə /

noun

1. dry wood or other easily combustible material used for lighting a fire

2. anything inflammatory or dangerous

   his speech was tinder to the demonstrators' unrest

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Other Word Forms

• tindery adjective

Etymology

Origin of tinder

before 900; Middle English; Old English tynder; akin to German Zunder, Old Norse tundr, Old English -tendan (as in ātendan to set on fire), Gothic tundnan to catch fire, German -zünden in entzünden to kindle

Compare meaning

How does tinder compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

• tinder vs. kindling

Explanation

Tinder is one of the things you need to start a fire — it's the extremely dry stuff, like wood or paper, that catches easily and helps get your fire going. To build a campfire, you need both logs and tinder. You might also call tinder kindling. This material is so dry and flammable that it quickly catches on fire and burns long enough to ignite the larger pieces of wood in your fireplace or outdoor fire pit. The word stems from the Old English tynder, from a Proto-Germanic root meaning "ignite" or "kindle."

Example Sentences

This tinder caught fire when food prices spiked again in 2010, triggered by a historic Russian drought that wiped out a third of the country’s wheat harvest.

From Barron's • Apr. 10, 2026

Blankfein added that the long period without a financial crisis cleansing process meant ”you accumulate tinder on the floor of the forest and eventually a spark will come.

From MarketWatch • Mar. 26, 2026

The Cowork plug-ins were like a match on dry tinder.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 5, 2026

But a week later, powerful Santa Ana winds arrived, and coupled with single-digit humidity, they turned the landscape into bone-dry tinder ready to burn.

From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 7, 2025

Normally his tone would have sparked a tinder in me.

From "Travels with Charley in Search of America" by John Steinbeck