Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. US) a problem, a difficult person, a trying situation, anything those concerned would prefer not to handle.

1822		Kaleidoscope New Ser. II 40/1: That you altogether pass over the inconsistency with which you stand taxed [...] especially with regard to Mr. Bass: you prudently drop that subject, as Pat says, ‘like a hot potato’.
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict. 25: Potato, drop it like a – to drop any thing suddenly.
1840		R.H. Dana Two Years before the Mast (1992) 200: If anyone got into an argument with him, they would call out – ‘Ah, Jack! you’d better drop that, as you would a hot potato, for Tom will turn you inside out before you know it’.
1856		C. Reade It Is Never Too Late to Mend 1 92: Then the old man took up one of Meadows’s books. ‘Australia! ah!’ grunted Merton, and dropped it like a hot potato.
1863		Western Gaz. 14 Mar. 4/2: The pangs of a guilty conscience pricked him, and he dropped the bag [...] like a man would drop a hot potato.
1875		Gallipolisd Jrnl (OH) 22 Apr. 2/3: Don’t pursue the subject. Drop it like a hot potato.
[1879		Morn. Post (London) 22 Nov. 5/2: They dropped the Game laws as a person would drop a hot potato].
1885		‘’Arry on ’onesty’ in Punch 31 Jan. 60/1: But they’re droppin’ it, Charlie, they’re droppin’ it, like other moral ’ot taters.
1897		Progress (Shrieveport, LA) 9 Oct. 11/1: The tax voted for the great Coushatta central will be a hot potato when Mr Edenborn fingers it.
1903		Coconino Sun (Flagstaff, AZ) 21 Mar. 3/3: Let us see to it that the [...] government tries not to give us any razzle-dazzle racket; if they do we will drop the whole business like a hot potato.
1904		‘Hugh McHugh’ I’m from Missouri 35: Bunch hit me with a hot potato when I wasn’t looking and I choked up.
1914		Day Book (Chicago) 19 June 8/1: The newspapers dropped the [...] story like a hot potato.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 155: Member of the corporation too. Egging raw youths on to get in the know. All the time drawing secret service pay from the castle. Drop him like a hot potato.
1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks n.p.: Hot potato jacket, a chiseling, selfish, worthless person.
1939		W. Winchell On Broadway 12 June [synd. col.] The Republican press had itself a very hot potato when Gov. Lehman [...] accused that party of pinching the budget so much that schools have to suffer.
1941		B. Schulberg What Makes Sammy Run? (1992) 163: He drops the hot potato in the supervisor’s lap and runs again.
1953		L. Uris Battle Cry (1964) 104: We had a hot potato on our hands.
1958		G. Casey Snowball 190: Such ingratitude [...] would have made him drop Jack Dempsey in his heyday like a hot spud.
1961		J. Kirkwood There Must Be a Pony! 32: They dropped her like a hot potato.
1971		F.J. Hardy Outcasts of Foolgarah (1975) 108: The Board of Authors [...] dropped Borky like a hot spud.
1978		L. Kramer Faggots 165: The only question that remained was when to purvey the hot potato now residing in his back left Levi pocket to his Pop.
1980		G. Liddy Will 108: Concerning [Timothy] Leary [...] they wanted him the hell out of the county. Fast. [Sheriff] Quinlan handed the hot potato to his chief deputy, Charlie Borchers.
1990		T. Winton Human Torpedo 63: That’s it. She’s gonna drop me like a hot spud.
2001		Indep. Rev. 8 Mar. 12: Traffic management schemes are such rural hot potatoes.
2012		Guardlian On Line 11 Oct. 🌐 Second only to the economy, the NHS will be the next election’s hot potato.
2019		Sowetan Online 4 Apr. 🌐 President Cyril Ramaphosa tosses #Alex hot potato to mayor Herman Mashaba.

2. in attrib. use of sense 1, problematic.

2016

Guardian G2 4 Jan. 3/2: This acount of the hot-potato crisis that led to the death of the US ambassador to Libya.

3. (US) an admirable, clever or energetic person [hot adj. (8b) + potato n. (1)].

1887		W.T. Call Josh Hayseed in N.Y. 62: ‘Don’t you think I’m a greenhorn,’ I says, ‘becuz if you do you’ll find me a plaguey hot pertater to handle.’.
1896		Mohave County Miner (AZ) 29 Aug. 5/1: He was broadly esteemed a hot potato.
1902		Ade Forty Modern Fables 181: I have told myself at times that I was a fairly Hot Potato.
1905		‘Hugh McHugh’ You Can Search Me 104: I met a certain old party this morning who thinks you are very hot fried parsnips!
1916		Mountain Advocate (Barbourville, KY) 4 Feb. 3/2: Ed Tucker, Norton’s ‘hot potato’.
1922		Wodehouse Clicking of Cuthbert 14: She had taken him at his own valuation as an extremely hot potato.
1936		Wodehouse Young Men in Spats 12: ‘[H]e undoubtedly regarded Freddie as a pretty hot potato’.
1983		C. Heath A-Team 2 (1984) 146: Gimme the radio, hot patato.