Badly regret dig – caused emotional discomfort (9)
I believe the answer is:
triggered
'caused emotional discomfort' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both to do with creating things as well as being past participle verbs.
Maybe they are linked in a way I don't understand?
'badly regret dig' is the wordplay.
'badly' indicates anagramming the letters (letters in the wrong order).
'regret'+'dig'='regretdig'
'regretdig' is an anagram of 'TRIGGERED'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for triggered that I've seen before include "gets fired" , "were let off" , "Caused (something) to happen" , "Set off" .)