kindling

plural kindlings

1. Small pieces of wood and twigs used to start a fire.

   Go and collect some kindling.

   1 more example

   When the flames at last began to flicker and subside, his lids fluttered, then drooped ; but he had lost all reckoning of time when he opened them again to find Miss Erroll in furs kneeling on the hearth and heaping kindling on the coals, and her pretty little Alsatian maid beside her, laying a log across the andirons.

   1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter III, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC

2. The act by which something is kindled.

   December 14, 1784, Hester Rogers, letter to the Rev. Mr. Fletcher The kindlings of love which had been felt before, now became a flame in every believing soul; and when fallen on our knees, the power of God descended of a truth […]

comparative more kindling · superlative most kindling

1. Illuminated, lit.

   The morning o'er the gilded grove Bright on the kindling landscape fell, I sought her where she oft did rove In want and sorrow's lonely cell;—

   1827, Lydia Sigourney, Poems, "Ye shall seek me in the Morning, but I shall not be,", page 52

1. gerundparticiplepresentpresent participle and gerund of kindle

   Despite the damp wood, he had no trouble kindling a fire.