hotshot

comparative more hotshot · superlative most hotshot · alternative hot shot · alternative hot-shot

1. informalHighly skilled.

   He was a hotshot lawyer, with an astounding win-loss record.

2. informalDisplaying talent.

   Keep up those hotshot baskets, and the scouts are sure to take notice.

plural hotshots · alternative hot shot · alternative hot-shot

1. informalSomeone with exceptional skills in a certain field.

   She sure was a hotshot on the keyboard, 93 words per minute!

   1 more example

   Heading into 2016 and 2020, if you told the hotshots from Obamaworld that you thought Biden would be a good candidate, they would uniformly offer a look of infinite patience, tolerance and condescension and say something like, “Well, I could understand how someone would think that.”

   2021 March 20, Maureen Dowd, “Old Pol, New Tricks”, in The New York Times

2. A type of firefighter highly skilled in wildfire firefighting without external support, using basic tools that are backpacked in and manhandled about.
3. USA portable device that is used to jump-start an automobile battery, or the electrical output of such a device.
4. USrail transportA fast freight train.

   Indeed, development proceeded so rapidly thereafter that Mopac, for instance, was rebuilding a series of 10-year-old Woodard 2-8-4's into 4-8-4's by 1940 - not because they couldn't steam but because their 63-inch drivers couldn't roll the hotshots fast enough.

   1959, David P. Morgan, editor, Steam's Finest Hour, Kalmbach Publishing Co.

5. slangA dose of recreational drugs deliberately laced with poison.

   I sniffed glue, transmission fluid, gasoline, whatever drug anybody gave me, I took. […] [Y]ears ago, I was in a drug rehabilitation program and found out that my brother was killed after somebody gave him a hotshot, drugs laced with poison.

   1997, Andi Rierden, The Farm: Life inside a women's prison, page 120

6. A lethal injection of heroin or another opiate.

   “You guys are being babies.” “Babies.” “Oh, we're being babies, Mac? Why don't you go work for your dad all day?” “My dad's a meth dealer.” “[Mock Crying] Oh, oh, no! My daddy's in prison!” “My daddy used to give hot shots to prostitutes. Feel sorry for me!”

   2006 July 6, Charlie Day & Glenn Howerton & Rob McElhenney, “Dennis and Dee Go on Welfare” (0:21 from the start), in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, season 2, episode 3, spoken by Dennis Reynolds (Glenn Howerton)

   Synonyms: hot dose

present singular third person hotshots · participle present hotshotting · participle past hotshotted · past hotshotted · alternative hot shot · alternative hot-shot

1. slangtransitiveTo give (somebody) a dose of recreational drugs deliberately laced with poison.