knee-jerk
/ˈnidʒəːk
/adjective [attributive]
1(Of a response) automatic and unthinking: a knee-jerk reaction...
- Mr Butler said a carbon tax was ‘a knee-jerk response to a global and complex problem’ and that a more sophisticated and appropriately costed solution would be necessary.
- Jones accused the American authorities of a knee-jerk response to its corporate scandals and said it was symptomatic of a protectionist economy.
- So just be careful before you leap forward with a knee-jerk response demanding gun control.
1.1(Of a person) responding to situations in an automatic and unthinking way: knee-jerk radicals...
- You're all looking like a bunch of knee-jerk reactionaries.
- People who think he isn't very smart are either knee-jerk liberals or not paying very close attention.
- They still managed to produce a perfectly reasonable constitutional document that deserves far more respect than it has received from the knee-jerk critics here at home.
noun
A sudden involuntary reflex kick caused by a blow on the tendon just below the knee.Apart from involuntary knee-jerks, it's the mind that rules....
- Too often this country resorts to the knee-jerk in order to effect social change, maybe we just need to be a bit more inventive in the way we approach the problem.
- take a powder
- take a rain check
- take a running jump
- take a shine to
- take a toss
- take a trip (or walk) down memory lane
- takeaway
- take away from
- take a wicket
- take a woman to wife
- take-back
- take breath
- take care
- take care of
- take charge
- take cognizance of
- take counsel
- take cover
- take delivery of
- takedown
- take effect
- take exception to
- take fire
- take five
- take flight