Tinder is the very fine dry material that catches a spark. Gather tinder, dry tinder, tinder and kindling.
The order is tinder, then kindling, then fuel, and skipping a stage is why most fires fail. Tinder-dry is the standard phrase for a landscape ready to burn, and a tinderbox held the flint and steel.
1nountinderThe very fine dry material that catches a spark.
“He struck the flint and blew gently on the dry grass he was using as tinder.”
tinder is a material.
Old English tynder comes from a Germanic root meaning to kindle.
Proto-Indo-European
*den-
Proto-Germanic
*tundrą
Old English
tynder
Middle English
tinder
English, today
tinder
Built from
From Middle English tinder, tunder, tender, tonder, from Old English tynder, from Proto-Germanic tundrą, tundrǭ (“tinder”). Compare stq Tunder (“tinder”), Dutch tonder (“tinder”), {{cog|de|
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA