hotline

noun

hot·​line ˈhät-ˌlīn 

variants or less commonly hot line

plural hotlines also hot lines

1

: a usually toll-free telephone service available to the public or to a group of people for some specific purpose

a suicide prevention hotline

His take reached a total of more than $10,000, but the scam was undone when an alert co-worker noticed it and phoned an employee-theft hotline to report it.

—David J. Solomon

2

: a direct telephone line in constant operational readiness so as to facilitate immediate communication

John Sullivan told the independent news outlet Novaya Gazeta that an emergency hotline between Washington and Moscow, set up in the Cold War … , was still in existence.

—Reuters

When the Milwaukee Bucks made the emotional decision not to take the court for Game 5 of the playoffs, there was a hotline between the locker room and the NBPA [National Basketball Players Association], with [NBPA head Michele] Roberts counselling the players on the other end of that line.

—Don Riddell

Examples of hotline in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages. —Kc Baker, PEOPLE, 15 Dec. 2025

Leadership has run a hotline, a message to all Senate offices, to see if there are objections to bundling five spending bills together as part of the minibus, with 10 separate amendments that will get a floor vote. —David Sivak, The Washington Examiner, 11 Dec. 2025

Anyone seeking help related to human trafficking is urged to contact the county's 24/7 confidential hotline at 877-363-7238. —Tim Fang, CBS News, 11 Dec. 2025

So the company uses the hotline as a side door, entering vets' social security numbers to access claim updates on tens of thousands of vets who once signed up as clients. —Quil Lawrence, NPR, 10 Dec. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1954, in the meaning defined at sense 2

Rhymes for hotline

• affine
• airline
• align
• aline
• assign
• baseline
• beamline
• benign
• bloodline
• bovine
• byline
• canine

Kids Definition

hotline

noun

hot·​line ˈhät-ˌlīn 

: a telephone line for direct emergency use (as between heads of governments or to a counseling service)

Medical Definition

hotline

noun

hot·​line

variants also hot line

ˈhät-ˌlīn 

: a usually toll-free telephone service available to the public for some specific purpose (as to receive advice or information about a particular subject or to talk confidentially about personal problems to a sympathetic listener)

a poison control hotline

suicide prevention hotlines