hot-button


Also found in: Idioms, Wikipedia.
Related to hot-button: politicise

hot button

n. Slang
Something that elicits a strong emotional response or reaction: an issue that became a hot button among younger voters.

hot-but·ton adj.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

hot′-but′ton


adj.
exciting strong feelings; highly charged; emotional: hot-button issues.
[1985–90]
Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.
References in periodicals archive ?
Society member Jane Trump will discuss the hot-button issues involved and reveal how Grayslake was in the thick of the often violent struggles that ensued.
SAN FRANCISCO -- Twitter on Thursday started requiring those behind hot-button issue ads in the US to be vetted as part of the effort by the social network to thwart stealth campaigns aimed at influencing politics.
Over three decades later, the Edsa People Power revolution remains to be a hot-button topic-that can inspire either confidence in the future or sheer cynicism and hopelessness among different people.
Summary: It's an undeniable fact that the media thrives on scandal and jumps at every opportunity to cover hot-button issues including gender-based discrimination.
On hot-button issues, Rubio focuses on "the space between" where Catholics can find common ground.
And there are cases on the court's docket that connect to hot-button issues that divide the country pretty sharply."
This year, we're taking we're taking a deeper look at the hot-button issues of border security and immigration.
Health care benefits are also a hot-button issue on both sides of the coin.
It makes sense that the media hones in on Hillel when it comes to such a hot-button issue.
And there were hot-button campus issues such as sexual assaults, alcohol, college access, free speech, college cost and debt, emotionally unstable students, and abuses in sports programs.
For the formulations of Alfred Korzybski, similarly for each, an alerting trigger resulting in action can be created; for example, the hot-button for indexing can be "distin" implying a distinct individual distinguished apart from abstracted class characteristics.