tinder

From Middle English tinder, tunder, tender, tonder, from Old English tynder,[1] from Proto-Germanic *tundrą, *tundrǭ (“tinder”). Compare Saterland Frisian Tunder (“tinder”), Dutch tonder (“tinder”), German Zunder (“tinder”), Swedish tända (“to light, to set on fire”). More at tind.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈtɪn.də/

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• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈtɪn.dɚ/
• Rhymes: -ɪndə(ɹ)
• Homophone: tender (pen-pin merger)

tinder (countable and uncountable, plural tinders)

1. Small dry sticks and finely-divided fibrous matter etc., used to help light a fire.
   • c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i], page 311, line 157:

     Strike on the Tinder, hoa: / Giue me a Taper: […]

Tinder refers to the first stage of building a fire: sparks light tinder, which then lights kindling, which then lights the main fire.

• kindling

• German tinder
• tinderbox

• teend

tinder (third-person singular simple present tinders, present participle tindering, simple past and past participle tindered)

1. (transitive) To set fire to; torch.
   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:

     Is heaven a murderer when its lightning strikes a would-be murderer in his bed, tindering sheets and skin together?

• tinder on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• dirten, rident, trined

• tunder, tender, tonder, tyndre, tyndir, tendre, tundir, tundur, tundyr

From Old English tynder, from Proto-Germanic *tundrą.

• IPA^(key): /ˈtindər/, /ˈtundər/, /ˈtɛndər/

tinder (uncountable)

1. tinder, firestarters

• English: tinder
• Scots: tunder, tundir

• “tinder, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-09-27.

tinder m

1. indefinite plural of tind