hotshot
Americanadjective
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highly successful and aggressive.
a hotshot lawyer; a hotshot account exec.
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displaying skill flamboyantly.
a hotshot ballplayer.
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moving, going, or operating without a stop; fast.
a hotshot express.
noun
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hotshots
plural
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an impressively successful or skillful and often vain person.
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Railroads. an express freight train.
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a firefighter.
noun
Usage
What does hotshot mean? A hotshot is someone who’s highly talented and successful in a particular field, especially someone who’s cocky about it. Hotshot can also be used as an adjective to describe such a person. When it’s used as an adjective, it typically modifies a noun that refers to a person’s profession or position, as in hotshot programmer and hotshot quarterback. Example: I heard they brought in some hotshot lawyer to take over the case.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of hotshot
Explanation
If you're a hotshot, you're extremely good at one particular thing. A young chess hotshot might win every game within the first few moves. Hotshot is an informal word for an expert or a whiz. The math hotshot in your calculus class is probably the first person whose hand is raised to answer the teacher's question, and several colleges will no doubt try to recruit a high school basketball hotshot. While hotshot gained this meaning in the 1930s, it originally meant "reckless person," and briefly, in the 1920s, "fast train."
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.
See Examples For:
“He was sort of like this hotshot from the top school in China and was clearly a catch for whoever was able to recruit him.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 4, 2026
Johnson, who is close to her legal team, has insisted Baroness Lawrence would not have been talked into taking part by "hotshot lawyers".
From BBC ● Jul. 8, 2026
And the craziest part is that Soriano isn’t some highly touted hotshot bursting onto the scene.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 25, 2026
Renzo Reginato, a member of the Cleveland National Forest El Coriso hotshot team, was one of three firefighters injured in the July 18 incident in Siskiyou County, according to the U.S.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 27, 2025
They advertise in about a thousand magazines, always showing some hotshot guy on a horse jumping over a fence.
From "The Catcher in the Rye" by J. D. Salinger
Diversification isn’t a formality: Since no one knows the winners across the AI ecosystem, your AI exposure should be broad, rather than centered on one or two hotshots.
From MarketWatch ● Apr. 15, 2026
A fellow member of the elite El Cariso hotshots was quoted on the GoFundMe recalling the incident.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 27, 2025
Firefighters also sometimes work in teams, often called hotshots, to clear vegetation from the land around a fire to contain and eventually starve it of fuel.
From National Geographic ● Aug. 10, 2023
I’m in my late 20s and have done well enough in my career, but I’m still very junior to some of these hotshots.
From New York Times ● Feb. 18, 2023
Not too long ago, chess-playing computers—the supervillain of many a human grandmaster—were as intimidating physically as they were virtually: bulky, sturdy, sleek, jet-black monoliths in miniature, programmed to crush chess hotshots instead of spurring evolution.
From Slate ● Jan. 24, 2023
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
