Priming

The act of priming typically refers specifically to the action of half-depressing the button on a buzzer in an attempt to reduce the time required to press it fully - the advantages of this practice are dubious at best.

Theory

Someone who is ready to buzz is primed. This is typically a mental state: for example, if a player has narrowed the answerspace to a few possible answers and is sitting waiting for a deciding clue, they will be able to buzz very quickly and win the potential buzzer race. The idea behind "priming" is that a similar state can be reached physically.

On physical buzzers, the buzzer button itself has to be pressed a certain amount for a buzz to register. Before that threshold is reached, the button has a small amount of space where it can be pressed in without anything happening. The idea behind priming is that this free space can be reduced by pressing the buzzer closer to the buzz threshold than it is by default, reducing the distance a player's finger needs to move. The saved milliseconds are much more of a factor in non-pyramidal formats where speed is more important than knowledge - in conventional quiz bowl, it is always better to just know one more clue.

Due to variation between buzzer systems and the very small distance between the default position and buzz threshold, priming is very risky and liable to lead to accidental buzzes.

Priming does not have an online counterpart. While some keyboards may have keystroke thresholds similar to buzzers that allow for intermediate pressing, most modern keyboards do not have this feature.