Hot-wire

verb, slang

verb, slang ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To start an automobile engine by bypassing the ignition key wiring. slang, transitive
  2. 2
    start (a car engine) without a key by bypassing the ignition interlock wordnet
  3. 3
    To steal a vehicle by bypassing the ignition key's security. slang, transitive

    "Never broke into a car, never hotwired a car. Never broke into a truck. 'I shall not cause harm to any vehicle nor the personal contents thereof, nor through inaction let the personal contents thereof come to harm' It's what I call the Repo Code, kid!"

Example

More examples

"Never broke into a car, never hotwired a car. Never broke into a truck. 'I shall not cause harm to any vehicle nor the personal contents thereof, nor through inaction let the personal contents thereof come to harm' It's what I call the Repo Code, kid!"

Etymology

From hot + wire, with hot referring to electrical current.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.