Meaning Of Idiom ‘Hot Potato’
When something is a hot potato it is a problem, situation, or subject that is controversial, divisive, sensitive, awkward, risky, embarrassing, difficult, or unpleasant to deal with; something that causes a lot of disagreement; something that makes people angry when discussed. 1(Definition of hot potato from the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press),2Ammer, Christine. American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013.,3Helterbran, Valeri R. Exploring Idioms: a Critical-Thinking Resource for Grades 4-8. Maupin House Pub., 2008.
Sentence Examples
“People say gun control is a hot potato issue in this country, as if mass shootings are not.”
“The biggest political hot potatoes right now are border control and abortion rights.”
“Providing tax relief for the elderly became a political hot potato after a real estate bubble in the 1970s that, for many, drove up property tax bills to unreasonable levels.” — Dallas Morning News
“If not, NATO’s presidents and prime ministers could face another summit of drama when they meet in Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius, on July 11-12 — a time when they must also handle another political hot potato: agreeing on Stoltenberg’s successor at the head of their alliance.” — PBS NewsHour, March 9, 2023
“Legal analysts say they see signs that the Supreme Court will try to back away from a hot potato case that poses big questions about who gets the final say over state elections laws.” — The Washington Times, March 9, 2023
“His past run-ins with the law is a bit of a hot potato subject with him.”
“We have to be careful with how we deal with this, it’s a real hot potato.”
“Ceding sovereignty to Europe is a political hot potato in Britain.”
Origin of Hot Potato
This idiom is related to the idiom ‘drop like a hot potato,’ which offers a clue to its origin. Baked potatoes not only are very hot coming out of the oven, but they retain their heat for a very long time, so you have to be careful when handling them. If you tried to hold a hot potato in your hands, you would have to drop it very quickly to keep from getting burned! Better yet would be to never pick up the potato with your bare hands in the first place. A hot potato has been used as a metaphor for something hard to handle, figuratively speaking, since at least the early 1800s.
There is also a children’s game called hot potato where players catch some object such a bean bag and pretend that it is a hot potato so that the player must throw it to the next player as quickly as possible to avoid getting ‘burned. Similar to musical chairs, music is played during the game and the object is to always keep the ‘hot potato’ moving and avoid being the one left holding it when the music stops.
The term hot potato is also used in baseball to indicate a ball that is thrown, kicked, or batted so hard that a receiving player cannot catch it. Further, in baseball, if a ball is thrown mistakenly to an umpire when there are runners still on base, the umpire will treat the ball like it is a ‘hot potato’ and try not to catch it, since it is still in play. 4T. Eric. “Origin of ‘Hot Potato’ Expression.” CulinaryLore, 5 Dec. 2020, https://culinarylore.com/food-history:origin-of-hot-potato-expression/.
