hot-button

• hot button, hotbutton

hot-button (plural hot-buttons)

1. Alternative form of hot button
   • 1995, Scott D. Wright, Human ecology: progress through integrative perspectives, page 262:

     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.

   • 1998, Ginny Pearson Barnes, Successful Negotiating: Letting the Other Person Have Your Way, →ISBN:

     What will trigger my hot-button?

   • 2012, Jay L. Lebow, Twenty-First Century Psychotherapies, →ISBN:

     Therapist: As you can see, this particular thought represents a hot-button emotionally for Susan

hot-button (not comparable)

1. Arousing intense reactions; eliciting strong emotion or controversy.

   a hot-button issue

   The newspaper published articles on the hot-button issues on the front page to attract attention.

   • 2005, Dave Zirin, What's My Name, Fool?: Sports and Resistance in the United States, →ISBN:

     It was too hot-button, too controversial for the athlete.

   • 2014, Roland L. Bessette, The Empress of Graniteport, →ISBN:

     This would be hot-button if Slade lived in Alaska.

   • 2017, Jennifer Weiner, Hungry Heart: Adventures in Life, Love, and Writing, page 284:

     Her platform was AIDS awareness—a big deal for an organization whose representatives usually embraced less hot-button causes.

   • 2019 July 12, David A. Graham, “The Overhyped Feud Between Nancy Pelosi and AOC”, in The Atlantic‎:

     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.