trigger-happy
16
8.2
- adjective
- /ˈtrɪɡərˌhæpi/
- Offensive
:
de gatillo fácil
- The police were criticized for being too trigger-happy during the protest, resulting in unnecessary violence.
- get trigger-happy
- trigger-happy cop
- trigger-happy girlfriend
A lot of the Iraqi guards were pretty trigger happy.
- A lot of the Iraqi guards were pretty trigger happy.
- If that gets mistaken for terrorism by a sort of trigger happy employee sitting in California, that's going to disrupt really core political speech.
Examples
-
Kit was the most trigger-happy person I'd ever met.
-
Driving through the city, we were repeatedly stopped by roadblocks manned by nervous, trigger-happy Libyan soldiers.
Blog text (5) -
I know someone, one of our guys, got trigger happy.
-
Looks like the boys got a little trigger-happy.
-
Watch out for him, Johnny, he might be trigger-happy.
-
The investigators will know if he has a prior history of being trigger-happy.
Blog text (7) -
Tell those snipers not to get all trigger-happy.
-
On board the ship, the Germans were guarded by trigger-happy Polish soldiers, whom Seefeld found to be "cruel and cunning."
Fiction book (1996) -
Senator Alan Cranston said, "Reagan is a trigger-happy president with a simplistic and paranoid worldview leading us toward a nuclear collision that could end us all."
Academic text (2011) -
Look, he's a trigger-happy cop and you're nothing but a pseudo-intellectual psychopath whose realities mean nothing to anyone but yourself and your dead sidekick.
Synonyms
∞
2.5
Using strong force that causes harm
42
6.8
Wanting people to be harmed or killed
31
6.1
Being ready to argue or fight
26
7.5
Being ready to argue or fight
2
8.2
Likely to attack or hurt other people physically
1
8.5
Too ready to use guns or violence without thinking
1
9.2
Ready to use violence to hurt people
Antonyms
How Aggressive
- Offensive
∞
2.5
- Offensive
16
8.2
311
3.7
210
2.9
735
1.0
428
1.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
The word trigger-happy joins trigger (the small lever on a gun) and happy used like 'quick to do something', which gives a clear picture of a person too ready to pull a gun's trigger. So, it now means being eager to use violence or force without thinking.