hot seat
Americannoun
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a highly uncomfortable or embarrassing situation.
I'm in the hot seat because of the contract I lost.
noun
-
informal a precarious, difficult, or dangerous position
-
a slang term for electric chair
Etymology
Origin of hot seat
First recorded in 1915–20
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
After two winning seasons, Mattingly was in the hot seat with the Dodgers in last place early in the 2013 campaign.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 1, 2026
Cue the violins, because after Jerome Powell’s swan song Fed rate meeting, it’s his final two weeks in the hot seat.
From Barron's ● May 4, 2026
WSJLI: You guys did a really fun social campaign with Ziwe, where the comedian known for putting celebrities in the hot seat was running a “Bad Boyfriend Bootcamp” with culture’s notoriously bad boyfriends.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 5, 2026
Hudson and Belichick, who began dating in 2023, have been thrown into the hot seat time and time again since going public with their age-gap relationship.
From MarketWatch ● Dec. 3, 2025
Gay and Phil would be in the hot seat next.
From "Three Little Words: A Memoir" by Ashley Rhodes-Courter
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
