potshot
potshot noun: a shot taken at an easy or random target. Also the simple past and past participle of potshoot.
Noun
potshot (plural potshots)
- A shot taken at an easy or random target.
- to take a potshot at
- Bannister leaped up, ran lightly across the intervening space, and with his repeater took a potshot at the galloping horseman.1908, William MacLeod Raine, Wyoming: A Story of the Outdoor West
- Criticism of an easy target; a cheap shot.
- He takes his share of potshots (mostly at the Da Vinci surgical robot), but the conscience of the film is in the stories of Essure, a procedure marketed to women as a hassle-free alternative to tubal ligation2018 July 26, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, “A documentary muckraker takes on the tech sector of health in The Bleeding Edge”, in The Onion AV Club, archived from the original on 29 Jul 2018
- And until recently, anyone could read his Facebook posts, which included vulgar potshots at Nancy Pelosi and her husband and a pronouncement that supporters of Joseph R. Biden Jr. suffered from a “mental affliction.”2025 May 13, Richard Fausset, “The Pope’s Florida Brother, a MAGA Disciple, Plans to ‘Tone It Down’”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
Verb
potshot (third-person singular simple present potshots, present participle potshotting, simple past and past participle potshotted)
- To fire potshots.
- Howard appeared in the doorway. “Say, Sig, go down to the corral and saddle up Teddy for Steve, will you? Some of his friends have been potshotting at him again. No damage done, except to my feelings, but there's nothing like being careful.”1910, William MacLeod Raine, A Texas Ranger
Adjective
potshot (comparative more potshot, superlative most potshot)
Also used as
potshot is also the simple past and past participle of potshoot.
Synonyms of potshot
- Adrian Quist
- adrip
- aled up
- all mops and brooms
- arseholed
- a sheet in the wind
- a sheet in the wind's eye
- bedrunken
- befuddled
- beliquored
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of potshot
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | potshots |
| alternative form | pot shot |
| alternative form | pot-shot |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | potshots |
| present participle | potshotting |
| past participle | potshotted |
| past | potshotted |
| Adjective | |
| comparative | more potshot |
| superlative | most potshot |
Origin of potshot
From pot + shot. 1858, shot taken for the (cooking) pot, namely for food; see pothunter. Sense “opportunistic criticism” from 1926. Sense “drunk” from obsolete pot (“cup used for drinking liquor”).
Questions about potshot
- What does potshot mean?
- Potshot means a shot taken at an easy or random target.
- What part of speech is potshot?
- Potshot can be a noun, a verb or an adjective.
- What is the plural of potshot?
- The plural of potshot is potshots.
Words near potshot in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: potshot (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “potshot.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/potshot. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.