What does "trigger-happy" mean?

Having a tendency or desire to shoot a firearm irresponsibly before adequately identifying the target.

Trigger-happy

Common synonyms include: aggressive, antagonistic, bashful, bellicose, belligerent, bloodthirsty.

adj

adj ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Adjective

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."
2
Inclined to behave recklessly or violently at the slightest provocation. broadly
"Be careful when you work near him; he's trigger-happy with that chain-saw."

Adjective

1
marked by extreme intensity of emotions or convictions; inclined to react violently; fervid wordnet
2
irresponsible in the use of firearms wordnet

"I don't want to risk our plan just because you are trigger-happy!"

From trigger + happy.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.