English edit

Etymology edit

From trigger +‎ -y (in various senses).

Adjective edit

triggery (comparative more triggery, superlative most triggery)

  1. Easily triggered; tending to go off very frequently.
    • 2001, Douglas R. Mauro, Kevin J. Schmidt, Essential SNMP, O’Reilly & Associates, Inc., →ISBN, page 134:
      The last thing you want is a threshold that is too triggery (one that goes off too many times) or a threshold that won’t go off until the entire building burns to the ground.
  2. Tending to upset.
    • a. 2007, antiabortion.com, notice to members, quoted in Miriam Grossman, Unprotected: A Campus Psychiatrist Reveals How Political Correctness in Her Profession Endangers Every Student, Sentinel (2007), →ISBN, page 86:
      A trigger warning serves as a heads up that the post contains some possibly upsetting material. Triggery subjects include, but are not limited to, pregnant women, children, clinic protesters, insensitive people, ... anniversaries, etc.

Noun edit

triggery (uncountable)

  1. Trigger mechanisms, taken collectively.
    • 1876 August, J. W. Greene, “Distance of Combs from Centre to Centre”, in American Bee Journal, volume XII, number 8, Thomas G. Newman, page 210:
      Now bear in mind there are no clap traps nor inconvenient and cumbersome triggery about all this, simply an inch hoop iron with saw-tooth notches cut 1½ inches apart and a frame made bevel edged all the entire length on the under side; []