touch off


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touch someone or something off

Fig. to ignite or excite someone or something; to excite anger or chaos. She is very excitable. The slightest thing will touch her off. The appearance of the fox touched off a furor in the henhouse.
See also: off, touch

touch off

1. 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.
2. Depict very precisely, as in He touched off Teddy Roosevelt as well as it's ever been done. [Mid-1700s]
See also: off, touch

touch off

v.
1. To cause something to explode or rapidly ignite: The spark touched off the puddle of fuel. A cigarette from a passing motorist touched the dry grass off and started a forest fire.
2. To trigger something; initiate something: Investigators wondered what could have touched the fire off. The news of the scandal touched off a public uproar.
See also: off, touch
References in periodicals archive ?
For if the pontiff's kiss seals an unspoken deal between the institutions of church and state, it may also touch off something far less predictable among the millions of people who are watching him.
POWER OF PEACE; WORLD WAITS TO SEE IF POPE SPARKS FIRE IN CUBAN PEOPLE
Two 17-year-old burglary suspects were arrested Monday after slamming a stolen minivan into a power pole, causing live wires to touch off a brush fire at an elementary school.
SUSPECTS' CRASH SETS OFF BLAZE; FLAMES BURN NEAR CLASSROOMS
Should God so choose, McCartney said in a recent interview, the organization's gathering might touch off a national upsurge in religious fervor, like the two that swept America in the 18th and 19th centuries.
PROMISE KEEPERS TO TEST MASS APPEAL AT WASHINGTON MALL
The start of work at the site has yet to touch off large-scale protests in the West Bank, and most of Bethlehem was quiet Thursday.
STREET FIGHTING RAISES TENSIONS ON WEST BANK
Fighting between the Zairian army and Tutsi rebels Friday entered a seventh day, crippling efforts by relief agencies to reach tens of thousands of refugees and threatening to touch off a regional war, diplomats and officials said.
THOUSANDS DISPLACED BY FIGHTING IN ZAIRE
government's integrity is at stake, a key Senate committee chairman vowed to bolster two current government probes - perhaps with congressional subpoena power - into possible CIA ties to a drug ring that helped touch off the crack scourge of the 1980s.
CIA-DRUG TIE UNPROVEN, PANEL TOLD
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