as in hot button
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Recent Examples of third rail
The new plant, Siemens's third rail production facility in the U.S., comes as the Biden Administration continues its push to get high-speed trains up and running in one of the few advanced nations that doesn’t have them.
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Alan Ohnsman, Forbes, 9 Sep. 2024
The remark caused many Republicans to panic, who have treated Harris’s race as a political third rail.
Republicans immediately started hitting the panic button, with some down-ballot candidates taking Trump’s statements on more directly than others.
—Brady Knox, Washington Examiner - Political News and Conservative Analysis About Congress, the President, and the Federal Government, 1 Aug. 2024
But gambling had been the third rail of baseball ever since the Chicago White Sox took money to intentionally lose the World Series in 1919.
—Lee Cowan, CBS News, 19 Oct. 2014
The treatment of conscripts has been a political third rail in the past for Russia.
—Ivana Kottasová, CNN, 16 Aug. 2024
See all Example Sentences for third rail 
Alan Ohnsman, Forbes, 9 Sep. 2024
The remark caused many Republicans to panic, who have treated Harris’s race as a political third rail.
Republicans immediately started hitting the panic button, with some down-ballot candidates taking Trump’s statements on more directly than others.
—Brady Knox, Washington Examiner - Political News and Conservative Analysis About Congress, the President, and the Federal Government, 1 Aug. 2024
But gambling had been the third rail of baseball ever since the Chicago White Sox took money to intentionally lose the World Series in 1919.
—Lee Cowan, CBS News, 19 Oct. 2014
The treatment of conscripts has been a political third rail in the past for Russia.
—Ivana Kottasová, CNN, 16 Aug. 2024
See all Example Sentences for third rail
Recent Examples of Synonyms for third rail
Noun
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None of this really should be surprising, because inflation, employment, and business cycles will always be hot button political issues.Norbert Michel, Forbes, 29 Oct. 2024
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Hitting hot button issues with fresh insight and hysterical precision, Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele revealed themselves to be two of the best comedy writers in the business, leading to a Peabody Award, two Emmy Awards, and millions of fans.Brian Tallerico, Vulture, 18 Sep. 2024
Noun
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Europe’s demographic challenges are becoming a ticking time bomb for the region’s economy, with Morgan Stanley delivering a grim prediction for its effects on GDP.Jason Ma, Fortune Europe, 14 Oct. 2024
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The ticking sound in capitals around the world is a demographic time bomb – of a sort unimaginable only a couple of generations ago.Ned Temko, The Christian Science Monitor, 17 Oct. 2024
Noun
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There’s that earworm refrain, followed by formidably declarative verses, a powder keg of a chorus and a high-concept bridge.Jason Lipshutz, Billboard, 5 Nov. 2024
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For most of its run time, Never Let Go slinks along slowly, but its final act explodes like a powder keg.Laura Bradley, Vulture, 25 Sep. 2024
Noun
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Many flash points remain along the border and could be reactivated at any time by Xi’s aggressive regime.Harsh V. Pant, Foreign Affairs, 14 Nov. 2024
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That flash point foretells an America becoming more polarized the hotter things get, more sharply divided between its rural and urban communities and more hateful and more dangerous.Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica, 19 Oct. 2024
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Cite this Entry
“Third rail.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/third%20rail. Accessed 28 Nov. 2024.
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