Hot potato is a party game that involves players gathering in a circle and tossing a small object such as a beanbag or even a real potato to each other while music plays.^[1] The player who is holding the object when the music stops is eliminated.^[2]

The origins of the hot potato game are not clear. However, it may go back as far as 1888 when Sidney Oldall Addy's Glossary of Sheffield Words describes a game in which a number of people sit in a row, or in chairs round a parlor.^[3] In this game, a lit candle is handed to the first person, who says:

Jack's alive, and likely to live
If he dies in your hand, you've a forfeit to give.

The one in whose hand the light expires has to pay the forfeit.

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