Word.ws English Dictionary

trigger-happy

trigger-happy adjective: having a tendency or desire to shoot a firearm irresponsibly before adequately identifying the target.

Adjective

trigger-happy (comparative more trigger-happy, superlative most trigger-happy)

  1. Having a tendency or desire to shoot a firearm irresponsibly before adequately identifying the target.
    • The bystanders were indiscriminately gunned down by trigger-happy gang members.
    • Crime is increasing / Trigger happy policing / Panic is spreading / God knows where we're heading1971, “Inner City Blues”, in What's Going On, performed by Marvin Gaye
  2. (broadly) Inclined to behave recklessly or violently at the slightest provocation.
    • Be careful when you work near him; he's trigger-happy with that chain-saw.
    • He was so trigger-happy that he wheeled and punched me when I brushed by him in the hall.

Forms of trigger-happy

comparativemore trigger-happy
superlativemost trigger-happy
alternative formtrigger happy
alternative formtriggerhappy

Origin of trigger-happy

From trigger + happy.

Words formed from trigger-happy

Questions about trigger-happy

What does trigger-happy mean?
Trigger-happy means having a tendency or desire to shoot a firearm irresponsibly before adequately identifying the target.
What part of speech is trigger-happy?
Trigger-happy is an adjective.

Words near trigger-happy in the dictionary

  1. trigger word
  2. trigger words
  3. Trigger's broom
  4. trigger-fish
  5. trigger-happiness
  6. trigger-happy
  7. triggerable
  8. triggered
  9. triggerer
  10. triggerers
  11. triggerfish

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: trigger-happy (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: “trigger-happy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/trigger-happy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.