View synonyms for lightning rod

lightning rod

noun

a rodlike conductor installed to divert lightning away from a structure by providing a direct path to the ground.
a person or thing that attracts and absorbs powerful and especially negative or hostile feelings, opinions, etc., thereby diverting such feelings from other targets:
The unpopular supervisor served as a lightning rod for the criticism that should have been aimed at management.

lightning rod

A grounded metal rod placed high on a structure to conduct electrical current from a lightning strike directly to the ground, preventing the currents from injuring people or animals or from damaging objects. Lightning rods usually have a sharp, pointed tip, since electric lines of force are more highly concentrated around pointed objects, in this case increasing the attractiveness of the rod compared with other nearby objects.
See also Saint Elmo's fire

An Americanism dating back to 1780–90

Second, Michelle served as a lightning rod in the sense of drawing attacks away from other reform groups.

On the top of the obelisk is a 100-ounce aluminum cap, which acts as a lightning rod.

Indeed Taubira, in particular, has been a lightning rod for opposition contempt.

The show delivered on all the spark a lightning rod host like Dunham should give off.

In 1968, Ted Nugent was a lightning rod, a personification of transformational freedom.

There he paused a moment for breath, and then climbed up the lightning-rod, hand over hand, and gained the roof.

Back along the wall he crawled, and, sliding down the lightning-rod, was once more on the roof of the old hotel.

Only the clumsy old lightning-rod shrieking in its rusty fixtures when the wind blows.

A friend of mine in a Southern city tells me of a red-headed woodpecker that drums upon a lightning-rod on his neighbor's house.

From this observation to the lightning rod was but a short step.

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