Hotline

How to spell hotline

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce hotline

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does hotline mean?

1. nounA direct telephone line set up for urgent or specialised calls, such as advice, support, or reporting.

Hotline in a sentence

• The company set up a customer hotline to handle complaints quickly.

• Worried parents can call the support hotline at any hour of the night.

Where does hotline come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a transparent twentieth-century compound built from two everyday English words: 'hot', which in slang came to mean immediate, urgent, or live, and 'line', meaning a telephone connection. The word rose to prominence during the Cold War, when 'the hotline' described the direct communication link set up in 1963 between Washington and Moscow so leaders could talk instantly in a crisis. From that diplomatic origin the term spread quickly into ordinary life, naming any dedicated phone number that puts a caller straight through to help or information. Because both parts are common, familiar words, the spelling holds no real surprises; the only thing to remember is that modern usage writes it as a single closed word rather than two separate words.

How the word is built

• hot (immediate, urgent)
• line (telephone connection)