Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Easily ignited material, such as dry sticks of wood, used to start a fire.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A brood or litter.
- noun The bringing forth of young: applied by English fanciers to rabbits.
- noun The act of causing to burn; setting on fire.
- noun Material, usually dry wood cut into small pieces, for starting a fire: as, put some kindling in the stove: most commonly in the plural.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The act of causing to burn, or of exciting or inflaming the passions.
- noun Materials, easily lighted, for starting a fire, such as small twigs or paper; -- also used in the pl..
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun small pieces of
wood andtwigs used to start afire . - verb Present participle of
kindle .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun material for starting a fire
- noun the act of setting something on fire
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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And it's an important point, because there's two things, really, with regards to what they called a kindling effect.
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_ She takes some wood, or some coal, and puts under it some pine wood, which she calls kindling, and some shavings, and then takes a match and sets the shavings on fire, and very soon the fire is made.
Parker's Second Reader National Series of Selections for Reading, Designed For The Younger Classes In Schools, Academies, &C. Richard Green Parker 1833
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First tinder, then thin kindling, followed by bigger and bigger kindling, then small fire wood followed by bigger.
What is the best way to start a fire in a hurry in the outdoors without matches etc. 2009
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Dry pine needles and dry wood shavings make good tinder to light the kindling from the burning cottonball.
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Some people just won't be happy until the Inquisition has office space again and kindling is being piled up around the local stakes.
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First tinder, then thin kindling, followed by bigger and bigger kindling, then small fire wood followed by bigger.
What is the best way to start a fire in a hurry in the outdoors without matches etc. 2009
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Dry pine needles and dry wood shavings make good tinder to light the kindling from the burning cottonball.
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She slipped and broke her hip while bringing in kindling during a blizzard and never recovered.
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Write to Done has been instrumental in kindling my passion to write again.
Why Blogs are the Brain of the World or, the Story of Write to Done | Write to Done 2010
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She slipped and broke her hip while bringing in kindling during a blizzard and never recovered.
mollusque commented on the word kindling
This pleasure either the young men copied from the older ones or the older ones always kept. The grown people, like the children, looked with kindling eyes at all turmoil, expecting delight for themselves and for you.
--Eudora Welty, 1946, Delta Wedding
December 11, 2010