hotter

Pluralhotters

Formshotters, hottering, hottered

1. 1
   adjective

   Comparative of hot.

   The desert grows hotter as midday approaches.

   This pan is much hotter than I expected.

   Note

   The doubled t marks the short vowel of hot, which also gives hottest, and in ordinary use the inflected form is preferred to "more hot." The comparative fits most senses of hot: a hotter pan, a hotter forehead in a fever. It does not fit the American electrical sense, though. A wire is either live or it is not, so nothing is "hotter" there. The same spelling also names a joyriding car thief.

2. 2
   nounslangUKcountable

   A person who steals a vehicle in order to drive it for the thrill of joyriding.

   The hotter abandoned the stolen car once the fuel ran out.

   Local hotters had been racing stolen cars around the car park all week.

   Similarjoyrider

   Note

   British slang that made its way into the study of public order. David P. Waddington's Contemporary Issues in Public Disorder (1992) describes police unable to chase the hotters without endangering pedestrians and motorists. The word is unlikely to be understood outside Britain. Joyrider is the neutral term that travels, so hotter belongs in informal writing or reported speech rather than formal prose.

3. 3
   verbdatedNorthern EnglandUKintransitive

   To vibrate or rattle, moving with a rapid, repeated shaking motion.

   The cart's wheels hotter over the cobblestones all the way to market.

   Old floorboards hotter underfoot in the drafty farmhouse.

   Similarrattle, shake, judder, vibrate, jolt

   Note

   A Northern English dialect verb with no tie to heat, despite the spelling it shares with the comparative of hot. Thomas Sopwith's 1833 account of the mining districts of Alston Moor, Weardale and Tees writes of "the jolting, hottering motion of the waggon," where the participle works as an adjective. It conjugates regularly (hottered, hottering). Today it suits period or regional writing rather than everyday speech.

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