hot-shot n.
1. a sexual athlete, used of either sex [note 17C hot-shot, one who discharged his firearm too enthusiastically].
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Malcontent Act I: Amongst a hundred French-men, fortie hot shottes. | |
| Merry Devil of Edmonton IV i: You are a couple of hot-shots; does a man commit his wench to you, to put her to grasse at this time of night? | |
| Devil’s Last Will and Testament F2: Out of these Rankes were those Hot-shots (the Masquers) drawne. | |
| Proverbs 214: You are a hot shot. | |
| Canidia iv 49: She there lies Leager, / Till she can find another, eager / Upon the Business, some hot Shot / That has a mind to go to th’ Pot. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | ‘Searching the Desert for the Blues’ 🎵 You might go across the deep blue sea / But mama you’ll never find another hot shot like me. | |
| ‘Sex Gang’ in Pulling a Train’ (2012) [ebook] C’mon, hot shot [...] let’s see how you do with me. | |
| Clandestine 85: ‘I'm interested in pickup artists—pussy-hounds, guys who score regular here’ [...] ‘We get hotshots, they come and go’. |
2. (orig. US, also hot) an important, influential person or one who believes that they are.
| Man o’ War’s Man (1843) 356: My eye! [...] what a red-hot shot of a fellow that there Allen must be, surely! | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Bulletin (Sydney) 13 Jan. 20/3: Our clergy are namby-pamby, mealy-mouthy, and creepy-crawly in their pulpit prayers over this war. Let us have some regular good red-hot gospel shots. | |
| Hobo’s Hornbook 35: There was Bugs Stein and Flickers O’Brien, [...] Lunger Scott and The Canton Hot Shot, / And some ’boes I never met. | |
| High Sierra in Four Novels (1984) 375: This Earle guy didn’t have his reputation for nothing like some so-called big hots you ran into! | |
| From Here to Eternity (1998) 184: If you’re such a hotshot [...] why didnt you transfer Prewitt into my platoon, like I asked you the other day? | |
| (con. 1940s) Wax Boom 13: Finch was all right. A little bit of a hotshot, but all right. | |
| After Hours 78: They all go running to the new hotshot. | |
| Skin Tight 118: Let one of the young hotshots do the knife work. | |
| Homeboy 203: Put the hand down and sit, hotshot. | |
| Night Gardener 181: The sexy sunglass-wearing hotshots with toned bodies and beautiful faces. | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | Ringer [ebook] n.p.: That’s the thing with these big hot -shots like Davie Geddes: they forget where they came from. | |
| Heat [ebook] Trask, picturing Leah with the hotshot, cleared his throat. | |
| (con. 1991-94) City of Margins 42: ‘You think you’re a hotshot. One day you’ll learn, you’re not so big of a hotshot’. | |
| Consolation 83: ‘You drive, hotshot’. |
3. (US) a cutting or sarcastic remark [shot n.1 (3a)].
| Doctor and the Devil 61: ‘Hot shot, Doctor,’ I remarked to myself. | |
 | Butte and Montana 85: Hot Shot at Our Rivals [HDAS]. | |
| Dly Gate City (Keokuk, IA) 5 Mar. 5/3: Scvoville’s sermon last night was [...] full of ‘hot shots’. | |
| (con. 1917–18) War Bugs 191: It’s good they get their high pay. To buy champagne ’most every day. (There’s a hot shot). |
4. (US tramp) a stolen car.
| ‘Vocab. of Bums’ in AS IV:5 341: Hot-shot—A stolen auto. | |
| Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 105: Hot Shot.– [...] An automobile stolen during the preceding few hours, the theft not yet discovered and reported to the police. |
5. (US tramp) a fast freight train.
| ‘Argot of the Vagabond’ in AS II:9 388: Fast freights are known as red balls, cannon balls, hot-shots. | |
| ‘So Help Me’ from Story mag. in Texas Stories (1995) 19: When we got to Houston we had the chance to hop a hot-shot clear down to the valley. | |
| Railroad Avenue 2: The crummy silently does stand. / The hotshot’s clamor fills the air. | |
| Augie March (1996) 167: There was a hotshot or nonstop express to Toledo making up in the yards. |
6. (drugs) the substitution of cyanide, strychnine or battery acid for white powdered heroin; when injected by the addict, it causes instant death and leaves no trace; also as v., to sell or take such a preparation [shot n.1 (6b)].
| ‘Argot of the Und. Narcotic Addict’ Pt 1 in AS XI:2 122/2: hot shot. Cyanide or other fast-working poison concealed in dope to do away with a dangerous or troublesome addict. | |
| Junkie (1966) 157: Hot Shot . . . Poison, usually strychnine, passed to an addict as junk. The peddler sometimes slips a hot shot to an addict because the addict is giving information to the law. | |
| Panic in Needle Park (1971) 48: Sometimes, she knew, these ‘hotshots’ contain no heroin at all, but rat poison. Addicts call this type of hot-shot a ‘ten-cent pistol’ because the poison costs a dime but is as effective as a gun. | |
| Requiem for a Dream (1987) 174: Ive seen a lotta good guys get blown away or hot shotted. | |
| Fort Apache, The Bronx 341: They hotshotted her because she was your old lady. | |
| Sydney Morn. Herald 1 Feb. 6/6: [A] ‘hot shot’ - a lethal overdose which is a common method of murder in the drug underworld. | |
| Double Bang 61: You gave him a hotshot so he wouldn’t give you up to the cops. | |
| Rent Boy 87: Two disposal problems [...] but one’s like a part-time addict that would only need a hot shot. | |
| Layer Cake 202: He’s perfectly capable of [...] giving an already gouged-out semi-conscious smackhead a hot-shot. | |
| ‘Hot Shots’ Wire ser. 2 ep. 3 [TV script] ‘What’s goin’ on?’ [...] ‘Hot-shot!’. | |
| Peepshow [ebook] One of the girls [...] got picked up on a heroin bust [...] When she got let out on bail she died of a hot shot. | |
| Old Scores [ebook] ‘That girl, I checked her purse. No fits, no gear. Someone came up here, gave her a hotshot’. | |
| Bobby March Will Live Forever 62: ‘[W]hat I believe is known as a hotshot [...] A deliberate overdose prepared by someone else’. | |
| Straight Dope [ebook] — Do you think he vas capable of killing her? — You mean like giving her a hot shot? |
7. (US und.) a mix of drugs, a ‘lethal injection’ (adopted 1977, first used 1982), that causes death and is used to execute prisoners in certain US states.
| Last Whisper in the Dark 9: I didn’t want him [i.e. a dog] to have to get the hot shot like Collie had. |
8. ironic use of sense 2, usu. as a term of address.
| Babe Gordon (1934) 15: The girls were bombarded with an avalanche of reek. ‘Hello there Babe!’ [...] ‘Hot shot! Here’s the hot-point sisters again!’. | |
| ‘Latin Blood’ in Speed Detective Aug. 🌐 ‘Well, hot shot,’ he greeted me sourly. | |
| Big Heat 147: The cops have that hot-shot you imported from Chicago. | |
| Burn, Killer, Burn! 107: What’s the hurry, hot shots? | |
![[Can]](/static/img/flags/can.png "Canada") | Go-Boy! 210: Don’t conk out on me now, hotshot! | |
| A-Team 2 (1984) 53: ‘Freeze hotshot,’ Smith advised the SWAT man. | |
| Crosskill [ebook] ‘Bit of a hotshot, eh, Niall? Bit of a bully?’. | |
| Skull Session 421: Show a little restraint, hotshot. |