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

For Sandra De Anda, the network coordinator for Orange County Rapid Response Network, which connects immigrants to legal help and runs a hotline to report ICE sightings, the poll results are a source of pride. —Hannah Fry, Los Angeles Times, 6 May 2026

The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages. —Samira Asma-Sadeque, PEOPLE, 6 May 2026

Anyone seeing a manatee or other marine mammal in distress is asked to call the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s hotline at 1-888-404-3922. —David Goodhue, Miami Herald, 6 May 2026

This means funding community mental health infrastructure, not just crisis hotlines, and ensuring VA mental health services reach veterans before, not after, a household is in acute danger. —Earl Smith, Time, 5 May 2026

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