hot [OE] Hot shares an ancestor with *heat. It has been used to describe sexual arousal since the Middle Ages. 1940 is the first record of the US the hots for ‘desire’, which may have originated in ‘to have hot pants for’, first recorded in the 1920s. In the early 1970s hot pants described the women’s fashion for skimpy shorts. People have used hot air for empty talk that is intended to impress since the late 19th century. See also blow.