potshot

plural potshots · alternative pot shot · alternative pot-shot

1. A shot taken at an easy or random target.

   to take a potshot at

   1 more example

   Bannister leaped up, ran lightly across the intervening space, and with his repeater took a potshot at the galloping horseman.

   1908, William MacLeod Raine, Wyoming: A Story of the Outdoor West

2. figurativelyCriticism of an easy target; a cheap shot.

   He takes his share of potshots (mostly at the Da Vinci surgical robot), but the conscience of the film is in the stories of Essure, a procedure marketed to women as a hassle-free alternative to tubal ligation

   2018 July 26, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, “A documentary muckraker takes on the tech sector of health in The Bleeding Edge”, in The Onion AV Club, archived from the original on 29 Jul 2018

   1 more example

   And until recently, anyone could read his Facebook posts, which included vulgar potshots at Nancy Pelosi and her husband and a pronouncement that supporters of Joseph R. Biden Jr. suffered from a “mental affliction.”

   2025 May 13, Richard Fausset, “The Pope’s Florida Brother, a MAGA Disciple, Plans to ‘Tone It Down’”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

present singular third person potshots · participle present potshotting · participle past potshotted · past potshotted · alternative pot shot · alternative pot-shot

1. To fire potshots.

   Howard appeared in the doorway. “Say, Sig, go down to the corral and saddle up Teddy for Steve, will you? Some of his friends have been potshotting at him again. No damage done, except to my feelings, but there's nothing like being careful.”

   1910, William MacLeod Raine, A Texas Ranger

comparative more potshot · superlative most potshot · alternative pot shot · alternative pot-shot

1. obsoleteslangDrunk.

   Synonyms: Adrian Quist, adrip, aled up, all mops and brooms, arseholed, a sheet in the wind, a sheet in the wind's eye, bedrunken

alternative pot shot · alternative pot-shot

1. participlepastsimple past and past participle of potshoot