Dictionary
Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.
hot-button en · ADJ
Meanings
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(not-comparable) Arousing intense reactions; eliciting strong emotion or controversy.
The MAGA masses are growing disillusioned with Justice Department officials who are failing to deliver damning information on a laundry list of hot-button issues — especially Jeffrey Epstein's suicide.
2025 May 20, Tal Axelrod, “MAGA faithful grow frustrated with Trump's Justice Department”, in Axios:Her platform was AIDS awareness—a big deal for an organization whose representatives usually embraced less hot-button causes.
2017, Jennifer Weiner, Hungry Heart: Adventures in Life, Love, and Writing, page 284:This would be hot-button if Slade lived in Alaska.
2014, Roland L. Bessette, The Empress of Graniteport, →ISBN:It was too hot-button, too controversial for the athlete.
2005, Dave Zirin, What's My Name, Fool?: Sports and Resistance in the United States, →ISBN:a hot-button issue
We’re only a few months into the Congress, and there are plenty of opportunities for bigger gulfs to appear; partisans agree on most things most of the time because most votes aren’t on hot-button issues.
2019 July 12, David A. Graham, “The Overhyped Feud Between Nancy Pelosi and AOC”, in The Atlantic:The newspaper published articles on the hot-button issues on the front page to attract attention.
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hot-button en · NOUN
Meanings
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(alt-of, alternative) Alternative form of hot button.
What will trigger my hot-button?
1998, Ginny Pearson Barnes, Successful Negotiating: Letting the Other Person Have Your Way, →ISBN:Therapist: As you can see, this particular thought represents a hot-button emotionally for Susan
2012, Jay L. Lebow, Twenty-First Century Psychotherapies, →ISBN:As is usually the casee when the use of stimulant medications like Ritalin makes it into mainstream media, the [Sroufe] piece pushed emotional hot-buttons in a way that would scare the daylights out of uninformed readers and lead them to avoid ever using such medications or allowing their children to, thereby giving up on a class of medications with enormous potential benefits.
1995, Scott D. Wright, Human ecology: progress through integrative perspectives, page 262:
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