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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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:
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
People start claiming your hotshot 27-year-old offensive coordinator is the reason for your success.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 14, 2026
The Eddie Murphy vehicle chronicles a hotshot advertising executive’s rude awakening after a merger leaves him with a new boss.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 29, 2025
Top Gun was a breakthrough for Kilmer, who played Iceman, the rival to Cruise's hotshot Maverick at the US Navy's academy for elite fighter pilots.
From BBC ● Apr. 4, 2025
The teacher was unpredictable and yet predictable at the same time, which reasoning confused Brian because he wasn’t exactly a hotshot in the psychology department.
From "The Chocolate War" by Robert Cormier
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
Her inexperience dealing with industry hotshots and A-list stars was embarrassing.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 2, 2023
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
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
Co-directed by the hotshots Lisenka Heijboer Castañón and Zack Winokur, it contrasts bright white with pitch black, and often dwells in the shades in between.
From New York Times ● Jul. 29, 2022
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.
