HOT SPOT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does hot spot mean? 

• HOT SPOT (noun)
  The noun HOT SPOT has 3 senses:

1. a place of political unrest and potential violence

2. a point of relatively intense heat or radiation

3. a lively entertainment spot

  Familiarity information: HOT SPOT used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• HOT SPOT (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A place of political unrest and potential violence

Classified under:

Nouns denoting spatial position

Synonyms:

flashpoint; hot spot; hotspot; trouble spot

Context example:

the United States cannot police all of the world's hot spots

Hypernyms ("hot spot" is a kind of...):

geographic area; geographic region; geographical area; geographical region (a demarcated area of the Earth)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A point of relatively intense heat or radiation

Classified under:

Nouns denoting spatial position

Synonyms:

hot spot; hotspot

Hypernyms ("hot spot" is a kind of...):

point (the precise location of something; a spatially limited location)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A lively entertainment spot

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

hot spot; hotspot

Hypernyms ("hot spot" is a kind of...):

spot (a business establishment for entertainment)

 Context examples 

These first infrared views of Jupiter's north and south poles are revealing warm and hot spots that have never been seen before.

(Jupiter's North Pole Unlike Anything Encountered in Solar System, NASA)

This immediately implicated the hot spots as the signature of the geysering process.

(101 Geysers on Icy Saturn Moon, NASA)

Messmates, but if Flint was living, this would be a hot spot for you and me.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

An infrared image captured during their observing campaign in January, February and May of 2017 clearly shows hot spots near the poles, where Jupiter's auroras are.

(Jupiter's Atmosphere Heats up under Solar Wind, NASA)

It is incredible that one narrow magnetic hot spot, the Great Blue Spot, could be responsible for almost all of Jupiter's secular variation, but the numbers bear it out.

(NASA's Juno Finds Changes in Jupiter's Magnetic Field, NASA)

"If you're trying to find that last few hot spots," Lindsay says, "rather than screening everyone, the dogs might be good enough to go into the villages to find people."

(The Dog's Nose Knows Malaria, Kevin Enochs/VOA)

"We are not ruling out movement or modification of a previously discovered hot spot, but it is difficult to imagine one could travel such a distance and still be considered the same feature."

(NASA Juno data indicate another possible volcano on Jupiter moon Io, NASA)

Lava lakes directly exposed to space without an atmosphere would create local hot spots of high temperatures, so they are not the best explanation for the Spitzer observations.

(Lava or Not, Exoplanet 55 Cancri e Likely to have Atmosphere, NASA)

Maps of the auditory cortex of human and monkey brains had similar hot spots of activity regardless of whether the sounds contained tones.

(Our brains appear uniquely tuned for musical pitch, National Institutes of Health)

You seem to be hitting all the hot spots in the sky!

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)