Word.ws English Dictionary

lightning rods

lightning rods is the plural of lightning rod.

Meaning of lightning rod

Noun

lightning rod (plural lightning rods)

  1. A metallic conductor that is attached to a high point of a building and leads to the ground to protect the building from damage by lightning.
    • "My special business is to travel the country for orders for lightning-rods. This is my specimen rod;" tapping his staff; "I have the best of references"-fumbling in his pockets. "In Criggan last month, I put up three-and-twenty rods on only five buildings."1856, Herman Melville, The Lightning Rod Man
  2. (figuratively) A person or thing that is a target for negative reactions and distracts criticism from another target.
    • Another factor was that when the two governments changed Stormont’s rules in 2006 they left the dual premiership as the “lightning rod for other difficulties”, said [Brendan] O’Leary.2023 October 13, Rory Carroll, “‘The hope we had is gone’: how 20 months of stasis has paralysed Northern Ireland”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

Questions about lightning rods

What is lightning rods the plural of?
Lightning rods is the plural of lightning rod.

Words near lightning rods in the dictionary

  1. lightning never strikes twice
  2. lightning never strikes twice in the same place
  3. lightning protection system
  4. Lightning Ridge
  5. lightning rod
  6. lightning rods
  7. lightning round
  8. lightning rounds
  9. lightning speed
  10. lightning speeds
  11. lightning storm

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lightning rods (page history and authors); lightning rod (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “lightning rods.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lightning_rods. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.