From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishtinderboxtin‧der‧box /ˈtɪndəbɒks $ -dərbɑːks/ noun 1 [countable usually singular]PROBLEM a place or situation that is dangerous and where there could suddenly be a lot of fighting or problems The area is a tinderbox that could again plunge the country into civil war.2 [countable]DBURN a box containing things needed to make a flame, used in the past
Examples from the Corpus
tinderbox• The refugee camps are a tinderbox waiting to catch fire.• Others plan to leave the Southwest for northern states untouched by the drought that has left Arizona a tinderbox.• They can go for years without rain there, and when that happens, the whole state turns into a tinderbox.• At the top of the cellar steps Broadman knelt down and fumbled in his tinderbox.• The Balkans have a long and tragically deserved reputation as a political tinderbox. 