trigger
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
7 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "trigger", 7-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "trigger" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "trigger" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
trigger is aEnglishnoun. It means: A finger-operated lever used to fire a gun. Pronounced /ˈtɹɪɡə/. It ranks #4,723 in English word frequency. Often confused with trimmer and triggered.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | trigger |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈtɹɪɡə/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #4,723 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 6 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for trigger is 7 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈtɹɪɡə/. Corpus data places it at rank #4,723 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 11 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 9 documented wrong-spelling variants for trigger, with forms such as "rtigger", "tirgger", and "trgiger". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 6 confusable-pair relationships, "trimmer", "triggered", "tiger", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Originally tricker, from Dutch trekker (“pull”, noun, as in drawer-pull, bell-pull), from Dutch trekken (“to drag, draw, pull”). Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is trigger, spelled T-R-I-G-G-E-R, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A finger-operated lever used to fire a gun.
- 2A similar device used to activate any mechanism.
- 3An event that initiates others, or incites a response.
- 4A concept or image that upsets somebody by sparking a negative emotional response.
- 5An event, experience or other stimulus that initiates a traumatic memory or a strong reaction in a person.
- 6An electronic transducer allowing a drum, cymbal, etc. to control an electronic drum unit or similar device.
- 7A device that manually lengthens (or sometimes shortens) the slide or tubing of a brass instrument, allowing the pitch range to be altered while playing.
- 8A pulse in an electronic circuit that initiates some component.
- 9An SQL procedure that may be initiated when a record is inserted, updated or deleted; typically used to maintain referential integrity.
- 10A catch to hold the wheel of a carriage on a declivity.
- 11An argument whose semantic role determines the choice of a verbal affix, in certain Austronesian languages.
Etymology
Originally tricker, from Dutch trekker (“pull”, noun, as in drawer-pull, bell-pull), from Dutch trekken (“to drag, draw, pull”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: rtigger,tirgger,trgiger,trigegr,triger,triggerr,triggre,trrigger,ttrigger
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for trigger
Misspelling Variants of "trigger"
Frequency rank: #4,723 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter T in our English index: