Hot as they make them = exceedingly amorous or reckless. Hot-blooded = lecherous: as (in Merry Wives, v., 5) 'the hot-blooded gods assist me.' Hot-house (q.v.) = a brothel.
1383. Chaucer, Canterbury Tales. Prologue to Canterbury Tales, lines 97 and 98. So hote he lovede, that by nightertale, He sleep no more than doth a nightyngale.
1596. Ben Jonson, Every Man in his Humour, iv., 8. Dost thou not shame, When all thy powers in chastity are spent, To have a mind so hot.
1598. Shakspeare, 1 Henry IV., i., 2. A fair hot wench in flame-coloured taffeta.
1599. H. Porter, Two Angry Women of Abingdon (Dodsley, Old Plays, 4th ed., 1875, vii., 354. Are ye hot, with a pox? Would ye kiss my mistress?
1605. Jonson, Volpone, iii., 6. I am now as fresh, As hot, as high, and in as jovial plight As when in that so celebrated scene At recitation of our comedy For entertainment of the great Valois, I acted young Antinous.
1608. Shakspeare, Antony and Cleopatra, iii., 11. Besides what hotter hours, Unregistered in vulgar fame you have Luxuriously picked out.
1614. Jonson, Bartholomew Fair, ii., 1. The whelp was hot and eager.
1693. Congreve, Old Bachelor, v., 8. If either you esteem my friendship or your own safety, come not near that house—that corner house—that hot brothel.
1697. Vanbrugh, Relapse, iii., 5. Young men are hot, I know, but they don't boil over at that rate.
1719. Durfey, Pills, etc., iv., 123. He laughs to see the girls so hot.
1892. Milliken, 'Arry Ballads, p. 37. As most of our plays are now cribbed from the French, wy they're all pooty hot.
2. (colloquial).—Careless of decorum; boisterous; utterly reckless and abandoned.
1888. J. Runciman, The Chequers, p. 187 You're a red-hot member!
3. (thieves').—Well known to the police; dangerous; uncomfortable; e.g., To make it hot FOR ONE.
1830. Buckstone, Wreck Ashore, i., 4. Mil. This place is now too hot for me, captain. Bills overdue, and bailiffs in full chase, have driven me to a hasty leave of my home.
1841. Tait's Edinburgh Mag., viii. 217. Finding all too hot to hold him.
1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, s.v. Hot. The cove had better move his beaters into Dewsville, it is too hot for him here.
1882. Evening Standard, 3 Oct., p. 5, c. 4. The Constable added that at the station the Prisoner told him that if he did not make it too hot he would give him £5.
1888. Tit Bits, 24 Mar., 373. The hottest suburb of London during Jubilee year was supposed to be Ealing.
1890. Marriott-Watson, Broken Billy (in Under the Gum-tree, p. 31). With a few pals, almost as brutal as himself, he made the place pretty hot from time to time.
1891. Morning Advertiser, 26 Mar., p. 2, col. 4. When Baker was arrested he asked Detective-sergeant Gold not to make it too hot for them, and tried to induce the officer to receive a sovereign.
1891. J. Newman, Scamping Tricks, p. 36. You'll find they will make it hot for you.
4. (colloquial).—See quot. 1690. Also violent; sharp; severe.
1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, s.v. Hot, exceeding Passionate.
1886 R. L. Stevenson, Kidnapped, p. 167. 'Well,' said he, 'yon was a hot burst, David.'
1893. Emerson, Signor Lippo, ch. xvi. I started life in a training stable, and a hot life it was for a boy.
5. (venery).—Infected; venereally diseased.
6. (colloquial).—Alive; vehement; instant.
1864. Browning, Dramatic Romances (ed. 1879, iv., 180), The Italian in England.' Breathed hot and instant on my train.
Verb (Winchester College).—To crowd; to mob.
