as in activated
to cause to function
his obscene comment touched off a heated debate about the need for censorship on live broadcasts
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Recent Examples of touched off
An investigation by The Arizona Republic, part of the USA TODAY Network, found that the fire was allowed to burn for seven days after a July 4 lightning strike touched off the blaze – even as fuel and weather conditions repeatedly reached the brink of critical thresholds for fire risk.
—
Rey Covarrubias Jr, USA Today, 9 Sep. 2025
Then OpenAI’s ChatGPT, released only a few weeks before Mercor’s founding, touched off a race among the tech giants to train the most advanced AI models.
—Richard Nieva, Forbes.com, 3 Sep. 2025
The explosions and fire touched off July 1 on a rural compound near County Roads 23 and 86A, where two fireworks companies — Devastating Pyrotechnics and BlackStar Fireworks — were storing materials.
—Joe Rubin, Sacbee.com, 29 Aug. 2025
That led to the Fed chief signaling rate cuts ahead, which touched off a powerful Friday market rally .
—Jim Cramer, CNBC, 24 Aug. 2025
Rey Covarrubias Jr, USA Today, 9 Sep. 2025
Then OpenAI’s ChatGPT, released only a few weeks before Mercor’s founding, touched off a race among the tech giants to train the most advanced AI models.
—Richard Nieva, Forbes.com, 3 Sep. 2025
The explosions and fire touched off July 1 on a rural compound near County Roads 23 and 86A, where two fireworks companies — Devastating Pyrotechnics and BlackStar Fireworks — were storing materials.
—Joe Rubin, Sacbee.com, 29 Aug. 2025
That led to the Fed chief signaling rate cuts ahead, which touched off a powerful Friday market rally .
—Jim Cramer, CNBC, 24 Aug. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for touched off
Verb
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By that point though, United had activated on signing Senne Lammens.—
James McNicholas,
New York Times,
8 Sep. 2025
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The gas is activated by the ultraviolet rays of the sun, making the tail glow in much the same way that black light causes phosphorescent paint to light up.—
Joe Rao,
Space.com,
8 Sep. 2025
Verb
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The fallout from Singapore's money-laundering scandal and high-profile crypto failures like Three Arrows Capital and FTX triggered an aggressive compliance push in 2024, according to Iris Xu, founder of corporate services firm Jenga, whose clients are wealthy mainland Chinese in Singapore.—
Lee Ying Shan,
CNBC,
12 Sep. 2025
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That contract, reached after the union leveraged a strike threat in 2024, included coverage of PBS Kids’ animation for the first time and triggered union representation for writers on shows like Molly of Denali and Work It Out Wombats.—
Katie Kilkenny,
HollywoodReporter,
12 Sep. 2025
Verb
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In California’s strawberry fields, an ICE raid sparked widespread panic and disruption among farmworker communities.—
David Rodriguez Muñoz,
Freep.com,
7 Sep. 2025
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The fire is assumed to have been sparked by lightning.—
CA WILDFIRE BOT,
Sacbee.com,
7 Sep. 2025
Verb
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The last is dumping iron dust into the Southern Ocean to provoke phytoplankton blooms that would suck heat-trapping carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, a move that set off a backlash when an American entrepreneur tried it off Canada in 2012.—
Alec Luhn,
Scientific American,
11 Sep. 2025
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The Flotilla set off from Barcelona last week and arrived at the Sidi Bou Said port on Sunday.—
Callum Sutherland,
Time,
10 Sep. 2025
Verb
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Isn’t the same belief what drove Laura to speak to them?—
Rafaela Bassili,
Vulture,
10 Sep. 2025
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Judge drove a full-count splitter from Casey Mize to right-center field, giving New York a 1-0 lead.—
Jackson Thompson,
FOXNews.com,
10 Sep. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Touched off.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/touched%20off. Accessed 14 Sep. 2025.
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