Word.ws English Dictionary

pulling the trigger

pulling the trigger is the present participle and gerund of pull the trigger.

Meaning of pull the trigger

Verb

pull the trigger (third-person singular simple present pulls the trigger, present participle pulling the trigger, simple past and past participle pulled the trigger)

  1. To fire a gun.
  2. (idiomatic) To commit to a course of action.
    • Most surprisingly of all, the mad queen Cersei is challenged to execute both of her brothers at different moments, and she can’t bear to pull the trigger either time.2017 August 27, Brandon Nowalk, “Game Of Thrones slows down for the longest, and best, episode of the season (newbies)”, in The Onion AV Club
  3. (idiomatic, intransitive) To shoot, kick the ball in hope of scoring a goal.
    • The Baggies almost hit back instantly when Graham Dorrans broke from midfield and pulled the trigger from 15 yards but Paul Robinson did superbly to tip the Scot's drive around the post.2010 December 28, Kevin Darlin, “West Brom 1 - 3 Blackburn”, in BBC
  4. (informal) To hit a very powerful shot.

Questions about pulling the trigger

What is pulling the trigger the present participle and gerund of?
Pulling the trigger is the present participle and gerund of pull the trigger.

Words near pulling the trigger in the dictionary

  1. pulling the plug
  2. pulling the rug
  3. pulling the rug out from under
  4. pulling the shutters down
  5. pulling the string
  6. pulling the trigger
  7. pulling the wires
  8. pulling the wool over someone's eyes
  9. pulling through
  10. pulling time
  11. pulling to publish

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pulling the trigger (page history and authors); pull the trigger (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.

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Cite this entry: “pulling the trigger.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pulling_the_trigger. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.