hot potato

American  

noun

1. Informal. a situation or issue that is difficult, unpleasant, or risky to deal with.

2. British Informal. a baked potato.

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hot potato British  

noun

1. slang an awkward or delicate matter

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hot potato Idioms  

1. A problem so controversial and sensitive that it is risky to deal with. For example, Gun control is a political hot potato. This term, dating from the mid-1800s, alludes to the only slightly older expression drop like a hot potato, meaning “to abandon something or someone quickly” (lest one be burned). The idiom alludes to the fact that cooked potatoes retain considerable heat because they contain a lot of water.

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Etymology

Origin of hot potato

First recorded in 1840–50

Example Sentences

Carpenter then tried to give it to Keoghan, but he refused, motioning at the statue as if it were a hot potato he was superstitious about jinxing.

From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 11, 2024

Now she is being entrusted with a true political hot potato.

From BBC • Aug. 31, 2023

It's also a regressive approach similar to the hot potato tossing seen in very special episodes of 1980s and 1990s TV where reproductive choices were acknowledged but never discussed in detail.

From Salon • Aug. 20, 2023

Until then, they seem destined to stay a transit hot potato, passed in bursts from one private owner to another.

From Slate • Aug. 9, 2023

She didn’t even look at me before she marched back up to the front of the room and dropped that paper on her desk like it was a hot potato.

From "Wish" by Barbara O'Connor

Related Words

• crisis
• emergency
• exposure
• insecurity
• instability
• jeopardy
• menace
• peril
• pitfall
• possibility
• probability
• risk
• threat
• uncertainty
• vulnerability