| 释义 |
ˈtinder-box
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).
1530Palsgr. 283/2 Tunder boxe, boytte de fusil. 1580Hakluyt Voy. (1599) I. 442 Tinder boxes with Steele, Flint, & Matches and Tinder. 1612[see tinder β]. 1697Collier Ess. ii. (1703) 84 One would think we might..with a good flint and steel strike consciousness into a Tinder-box. 1759Dumaresque in Phil. Trans. LI. 485 They make use of a wooden machine (instead of a tinder-box), to light fire with. 1836Marryat Japhet xlvii, I..found a tinderbox. I struck a light. c1840–5(Tunder-box in use in N. Lincolnsh.). 1893Leland Mem. I. 47 The use of the tinderbox and brim⁓stone was universal.
b. fig. A thing or person likened to a tinder-box, esp. as being very ‘inflammable’ or a source of heated strife.
1598Shakes. Merry W. i. iii. 27, I am glad I am so acquit of this Tinderbox. 1608Sylvester Du Bartas ii. iv. v. Decay 12 Huff-pufft Ambition, tinderbox of warre, Downfall of Angels, Adam's murderer. 1839J. MacDonald in Tweedie Life iv. (1849) 335 The tinder-box of mortality within me may at any moment take fire. 1897Current Hist. (Buffalo, N.Y.) VII. 313 One of the chief danger-points in Europe, a veritable tinder-box.
c. attrib. and Comb.
a1704T. Brown Lett. to Gentl. & Ladies Wks. 1709 III. ii. 107 A Couple of Tinderbox-cryers. 1856Kane Arct. Expl. I. xxix. 379 He struck them together after the true tinder-box fashion. |