hot spot

hot + spot.

hot spot (plural hot spots)

1. A place notable for a high level of activity or danger.
   • 2010, Thomas [Ellis] Joiner[, Jr.], Myths about Suicide, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, →ISBN, page 154:

     For instance, Toronto's Bloor Street Viaduct was, alas, a suicide hotspot – in fact, it was second only to the Golden Gate Bridge in terms of the number of bridge-related suicides.

   • 2013 November 27, Emily Jane O'Dell, “Deep cover [print version: International Herald Tribune Magazine, 2013, page 47]”, in The New York Times‎, archived from the original on 9 December 2013:

     I might never have learned my name or met my birth family if I hadn't ended up in the hospital in Rhode Island in 2007, after traveling to a trifecta of malaria hotspots: Mali, Egypt and Colombia.

   1. A dangerous place of violent political unrest.

      Synonyms: flash point, trouble spot

   2. An area of radioactive contamination.
   3. A lively and entertaining place, such as a nightclub.
      • 1940 June 21, “Further Statement of Thad H. Brown, Commissioner, Federal Communications Commission, Washington, D.C.”, in Nomination of Thad H. Brown: Hearings before the Committee on Interstate Commerce, United States Senate, Seventy-sixth Congress, Third Session on the Nomination of Thad H. Brown on Reappointment as Federal Communications Commissioner […], Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, OCLC 4200122, page 81:

        It has been reported that an entertainment took place not long ago in a certain "hot spot" in New York City, and it has been charged that members of the Federal Communications Commission were present; that they got into a drunken brawl; and in the brawl some woman was hurt, her arm twisted.

2. (computing) A part of an application that consumes a significant amount of execution time.
3. (computing, graphical user interface) Part of a control that responds dynamically as the user moves the pointer over it, as for example in an image map.
4. (computing, networking) A location in which WiFi Internet access is available.

   Antonym: notspot

5. (genetics) The region of a gene in which there is higher than normal rate of mutation.
6. (planetology, geology) The surface manifestation of a plume that rises from deep in the celestial body's mantle.

• hotspot

• hotspot (geology) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• hotspot (wifi) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• hot pots, hotpots, pot shot, potshot