hot potato

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hot potato (countable and uncountable, plural hot potatoes)

1. (uncountable) A child's game in which players pass a ball or other item between them, with the object of avoiding being left holding the item when time expires.
2. (countable, idiomatic) An awkward or delicate problem with which nobody wants to be associated.

   The politician hastened to distance himself from that political hot potato.

• (game): pass the parcel

• drop something like a hot potato
• hot-potato routing