hair-trigger

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of hair-trigger But Halfmann suspects this hair-trigger system is needlessly killing brain cells in diseases like Alzheimer's. Jon Hamilton, NPR, 16 Oct. 2025 The timing of the blaze, the threats Goodstein received and the country’s hair-trigger political atmosphere all offered more than a little reason for pause and reflection. Mark Z. Barabak, Mercury News, 10 Oct. 2025 The self-supporting rotational action and hair-trigger dip-buying reflex is underpinning this resilience, with some mostly expected but reassuring data on personal income, spending and PCE inflation providing cover. Michael Santoli, CNBC, 26 Sep. 2025 Wayans portrays White as the worst possible mentor: a brash, arrogant superstar with a hair-trigger temper and too many screws loose. Andre Gee, Rolling Stone, 18 Sep. 2025 It’s got that freak existential hair-trigger suspense — in this case, literally. Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 2 Sep. 2025 They’re staffed around the clock and kept on hair-trigger alert. Kurt Snibbe, Oc Register, 6 Aug. 2025 The real uncertainties in the bond market are lodged in the larger complexities and flammable preconditions resulting from highly leveraged speculative positions set to unwind on a hair-trigger. George Calhoun, Forbes.com, 25 May 2025 But does the Sandman still have the fire in him to play a hockey player turned golfer powered by his hair-trigger temper? A.a. Dowd, Vulture, 20 May 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for hair-trigger
Adjective
  • In the era of social media, Democratic and Republican politicians have grown hypersensitive, and responsive, to activists who seemingly live their lives online.
    David M. Drucker, Mercury News, 14 Oct. 2025
  • Democrats, despite their hypersensitive, bleeding-heart reputation, can be harsh.
    Mark Z. Barabak, Boston Herald, 6 Oct. 2025
Adjective
  • Your eyes become supersensitive to sunlight: Some people with nr-axSpA will also have a condition called uveitis.
    Alice Oglethorpe, SELF, 18 July 2025
  • Across the world, dozens of supersensitive detectors have been installed since the beginning of the Cold War era to detect infrasound waves created by nuclear tests thousands of miles away.
    Tereza Pultarova, Space.com, 12 May 2025
Adjective
  • Most commenters on the TSR post agreed that Yung Miami meant no disrespect and that Lizzo was being a little oversensitive.
    Madeleine Marr, Miami Herald, 26 Mar. 2025
  • The 8th and 9th are full of good energy, but everyone seems to be feeling oversensitive near the 13th.
    Katharine Merlin, Town & Country, 1 Sep. 2023
Adjective
  • The director wrenches apart Ibsen’s terse and precise mechanism and makes room for a proliferation of arresting moments—caught on the wing in wide-screen images, thanks to Sean Bobbitt’s cinematography—that balance tragedy and horror with excitement and wonder.
    Richard Brody, New Yorker, 17 Oct. 2025
  • Almost none of the refugees had been permitted to read or write on the plantation, and thus the precise nuance of their feelings is lost to time.
    Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 17 Oct. 2025

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Cite this Entry

“Hair-trigger.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/hair-trigger. Accessed 23 Oct. 2025.

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