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

Anyone with any information is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477), or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). —Jesse Zanger, CBS News, 4 Mar. 2026

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a Facebook video that Americans in the Middle East can call the department’s emergency hotline 24 hours a day, seven days a week for help. —Laura Bassett, Condé Nast Traveler, 4 Mar. 2026

Residents of Syracuse, New York — America’s snowiest city — once barraged a service hotline with street neglect complaints during blizzards, even if plows had passed two hours earlier but the work was hidden by fresh snow. —Jeff McMurray, Fortune, 3 Mar. 2026

The hotline can be reached by call, text, chat, or ASL videophone or text at 988. —Emlyn Travis, Entertainment Weekly, 3 Mar. 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