touch off
Britishverb
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to cause to explode, as by touching with a match
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to cause (a disturbance, violence, etc) to begin
the marchers' action touched off riots
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Cause to explode or fire; also, initiate, trigger. For example, The boys touched off a whole line of firecrackers , or These disclosures will touch off a public uproar . This idiom comes from early firearms, which were set off by putting a light to the touch-hole. Its figurative use dates from the late 1800s.
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Depict very precisely, as in He touched off Teddy Roosevelt as well as it's ever been done . [Mid-1700s]
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Anthropic, which touched off last week’s market meltdown with advancements to Claude, ranks as one of the top initial public offerings in the pipeline for this year.
From Barron's
But it has also touched off a wave of speculation, made traditional wedding gifts unaffordable for many, and all but ended the informal gold mortgage system.
From Barron's
Union Pacific’s July agreement to acquire Norfolk Southern touched off speculation that Berkshire’s railroad, BNSF, would participate in another wave of consolidation.
The high lasted just a few hours — and touched off an extraordinary 14 days of rapid-fire accusations, investigative findings and a massive federal freeze of UCLA’s research funding.
From Los Angeles Times
“I just think my mechanics were a touch off there those first couple innings,” Wrobleski said.
From Los Angeles Times
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
