1425–75; late Middle English; after Sir Henry Percy, to whom it was applied as a nickname
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
More significant men of his time can be discussed without passion because they are inextricably woven into a tapestry of the past, but this hotspur refuses to die.
From Reuters • Jan. 11, 2013
“You try telling that hotspur Phaeton why he was reined in, or rosy-fingered Aurora why I had to shove her in the face,” Hermes archly tells the reader.
From New York Times • Apr. 4, 2010
His extraordinary behavior, manifested in a supreme disregard for social etiquette, won for him the sobriquet of "the hotspur of Europe," and the conviction that he was mad.
From Time Magazine Archive
But in surrendering his job as chief executive of the 127-year-old Boston & Maine, the hotspur of U.S. railroading at least set a refreshing precedent.
From Time Magazine Archive
Did they ever think that they too are traitors, and that they are as legally deserving of a halter as the madest secession hotspur of South Carolina?
From The Crisis of Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-One In The Government of The United States. Its Cause, and How it Should be Met by Steight, A. D.
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.
