Word.ws English Dictionary

itchy trigger finger

itchy trigger finger noun: the trigger finger of a person eager to fire their weapon or likely to do so unexpectedly.

Noun

itchy trigger finger (plural itchy trigger fingers)

  1. The trigger finger of a person eager to fire their weapon or likely to do so unexpectedly.
    • As jittery as everyone was, there were bound to be some itchy trigger fingers, American and Kuwaiti.2006, Seth W. B. Folsom, The Highway War, unnumbered page
    • Travel at night was forbidden and frankly, none of us seemed upset about this as we all knew how the U.S. Army troops had itchy trigger fingers.2009, Steven D. Orr, The Perennial Wanderer, page 379
  2. (idiomatic) The metaphorical trigger finger of a person with a tendency or readiness to act in haste or without consideration; a tendency to so act.
    • Given any remote chance to gun down an effective spokesman for conservative economics as a secret fascist and torturer, even Nobel laureates can, we see, succumb to an itchy trigger finger.
    • They all have an itchy trigger finger when it comes to advertising.2002, Matthew W. Ragas, Bolivar J. Bueno, The Power of Cult Branding, page xii

Examples of itchy trigger finger in a sentence

  • As the police made their way to the upper levels, they did so with guns drawn and itchy trigger fingers at the ready.2011, Thomas Thorn, Ugly Stories, page 242:
  • Under these kinds of circumstances, players with significant exposure, tight stops, and itchy trigger fingers can end up overreacting to what is essentially noise.2004, Michael J. Panzner, The New Laws of the Stock Market Jungle, unnumbered page:
  • Look at Afghanistan and Iraq, it's plain to see that our current President has an itchy trigger finger.2008, Casey Sherman, Black Dragon, page 168:

Forms of itchy trigger finger

pluralitchy trigger fingers

Questions about itchy trigger finger

What does itchy trigger finger mean?
Itchy trigger finger means the trigger finger of a person eager to fire their weapon or likely to do so unexpectedly.
How do you use itchy trigger finger in a sentence?
As the police made their way to the upper levels, they did so with guns drawn and itchy trigger fingers at the ready.
What part of speech is itchy trigger finger?
Itchy trigger finger is a noun.
What is the plural of itchy trigger finger?
The plural of itchy trigger finger is itchy trigger fingers.

Words near itchy trigger finger in the dictionary

  1. itchwood
  2. itchy
  3. itchy feet
  4. itchy palm
  5. itchy palms
  6. itchy trigger finger
  7. itchy trigger fingers
  8. ITCZ
  9. ITCZs
  10. ITE
  11. itea

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: itchy trigger finger (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-itchy trigger finger.ogg.

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