powder barrel
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
But ... the mere mention of the strategic question worked like a spark in a powder barrel.
From Time Magazine Archive
He fell in love with the wife of one of Napoleon's leading officials, imagined that that old black magic was enchanting his inamorata, that "she looked at me as though I were a powder barrel."
From Time Magazine Archive
In reality, however, our conflict with Servia was not the cause of the great war now raging, but only the spark which brought the overloaded powder barrel to explosion.
From The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 What Americans Say to Europe by Various
The sensation of sitting on a powder barrel had returned to him, except that now there was no head to the barrel and the air was full of sparks.
From Galusha the Magnificent by Joseph Crosby Lincoln
And now here He deliberately, and of set purpose, takes a step which is like flinging a spark into a powder barrel.
From Expositions of Holy Scripture : St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII by Alexander Maclaren
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