Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Wiktionary
a. 1 unstable, in a situation that could be worsened by the slightest mistake 2 easy angered, having a short temper n. a trigger that will set off a firearm when even a very small pressure is applied
WordNet
adj. responsive to the slightest stimulation or provocation; "he has a hair-trigger temper"
Usage examples of "hair-trigger".
The Gurth had little experience of air-to-air combat and the automatic hair-trigger weapons were not sighted for limited range.
But Brushy Jim was unpredictable, and he had a hair-trigger temper, so she decided that a shrug was the safest response.
I crunched my gingersnaps, watching her shoulders ease and her motions lose their hair-trigger quickness.
From that moment on, his temper was less hair-trigger, his moods less black.
Khouri's suit automatically jumped to a higher, more hair-trigger level of battle readiness, indices on the display changing to indicate that their respective subordinated weapons systems were set to go off without her conscious say-so if her suit were similarly threatened.
Sorem had fancied a hair-triggered gun, and Uspurul was holding the trigger down as she ran toward Barrand and Nelt, swinging the gun muzzle about in short arcs in front of her.
Her passive systems had peered ahead, poised on a hair-trigger to warn of any active detection systems, but she'd been blind to anything but fairly powerful energy sources, and curiosity was killing her crew.
Instantly and galvanically her reinforced foot shot up in hair-trigger self-protection, catching Jock a mighty blow between the legs with its heavy black brick.
And trusting the human mind could keep going for four hours on intermittent hyperfocus at that v with no shields, only a constantly changing VR HUD display and a fire-power adequate to take out what threatened it—if reactions were still hair-triggered after that length of time immersed in virtual space.
Taut as the hair-trigger latch on a crossbow, he snatched his sword from the bedstead.
The man had a hair-trigger temper and would not have given thought to the simple fact that a message would take at least two days to get to Naples and even troops stationed on the border would take weeks to move back.
Goidom's successes had entered the realm of legerdemain, but he seriously doubted that Bad Clams, the egotist, the pseudophilosopher with the hair-trigger temper, was in the league of either Goldoni or his own father, the brilliant Leon Waxman.