hotshot

• hot shot, hot-shot

• IPA^(key): /ˈhɒtˌʃɒt/

• Audio (AU)

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hotshot (comparative more hotshot, superlative most hotshot)

1. (informal) Highly skilled.

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

2. (informal) Displaying talent.

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

hotshot (plural hotshots)

1. (informal) Someone with exceptional skills in a certain field.

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

2. A type of firefighter highly skilled in wildfire firefighting without external support, using basic tools that are backpacked in and manhandled about.
3. (US, rail transport) A fast freight train.
   • 1959, David P. Morgan, editor, Steam's Finest Hour, Kalmbach Publishing Co.:

     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.

4. (slang) A dose of recreational drugs deliberately laced with poison.
   • 1997, Andi Rierden, The Farm: Life inside a women's prison, page 120:

     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.

• (firefighter): smokejumper

hotshot (third-person singular simple present hotshots, present participle hotshotting, simple past and past participle hotshotted)

1. (transitive, slang) To give (somebody) a dose of recreational drugs deliberately laced with poison.

• (firefighter): Interagency hotshot crew on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• “hotshot”, in Collins English Dictionary.