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.

   Synonym: pass the parcel

2. (countable, idiomatic) An awkward or delicate problem with which nobody wants to be associated.
   • 1969 January 12, Benjamin Welles, “A Hot Potato for Nixon”, in The New York Times‎^[1], →ISSN:

     The “lame duck” Johnson Administration, in its final fortnight in office, grappled last week with a diplomatic hot potato in the form of the latest Soviet proposal for a “just and lasting” Middle East peace settlement.

   • 1984 June 14, Carol Lawson, quoting Phyllis Silverman, “Parental Leave: a ‘Hot Potato’”, in The New York Times‎^[2], →ISSN:

     How do you handle the work of a woman out on leave, yet not lose a valuable employee down the road? At the same time, companies know this is a hot potato, and they have to do something.

   • 2021 August 3, Ed Augustin, Daniel Montero, “Why the internet in Cuba has become a US political hot potato”, in The Guardian‎^[3]:

     Full connectivity returned 72 hours later, but the issue has become a hot potato in the US.

• drop like a hot potato
• hot-potato routing

• hot button

• third rail