hotting

1. 1
   verbUK

   Present participle of hot.

   The competition kept hotting up as the final deadline drew closer.

   Tensions were hotting up in the negotiating room by late afternoon.

   Note

   Here the verb hot, meaning "to heat" or "to become lively", takes -ing and doubles its final t, as short verbs ending in one vowel and one consonant do. The lively sense usually comes with up: things are hotting up when a contest or quarrel grows more intense. Keep it apart from the stolen-car slang, which shares the spelling but grows from hot meaning "stolen".

2. 2
   nounslangBritishuncountable

   Riding around in a high-performance stolen car, especially as a form of display for onlookers.

   The estate became notorious for hotting, with stolen BMWs screaming around the closes after midnight.

   Crowds would gather to watch the hotting, cheering as drivers spun stolen cars across the car park.

   Similarjoyriding

   Note

   British slang builds this word on hot in its "stolen" sense, the same hot as in hot merchandise, so the theft is already inside the word. What it names is a spectacle more than a journey, because the point is to be watched. It is uncountable and takes no plural: people go in for hotting, or gather to watch it. It belongs to speech and street reporting, not formal prose.

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