hotshot

Etymology

adj

1. (informal) Highly skilled.
   He was a hotshot lawyer, with an astounding win-loss record.
2. (informal) Displaying talent.
   Keep up those hotshot baskets, the scouts are sure to take notice.

noun

1. (informal) Someone with exceptional skills in a certain field.
   She sure was a hotshot on the keyboard, 93 words per minute!
2. A type of firefighter highly skilled in wildfire firefighting without external support, using basic tools that are backpacked in and manhandled about.
3. (US, rail transport) A fast freight train.
   Indeed, development proceeded so rapidly thereafter that Mopac, for instance, was rebuilding a series of 10-year-old Woodard 2-8-4's into 4-8-4's by 1940 - not because they couldn't steam but because their 63-inch drivers couldn't roll the hotshots fast enough. 1959, David P. Morgan, editor, Steam's Finest Hour, Kalmbach Publishing Co.
4. (slang) A dose of recreational drugs deliberately laced with poison.
   I sniffed glue, transmission fluid, gasoline, whatever drug anybody gave me, I took. […] [Y]ears ago, I was in a drug rehabilitation program and found out that my brother was killed after somebody gave him a hotshot, drugs laced with poison. 1997, Andi Rierden, The Farm: Life inside a women's prison, page 120

verb

1. (transitive, slang) To give (somebody) a dose of recreational drugs deliberately laced with poison.