shorts vs hot pants

shorts and hot pants both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
shorts	Yes	No	No	No
hot pants	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, hot pants is a hyponym of shorts; that is, hot pants is a word with a more specific, narrower meaning than shorts:

shorts: (used in the plural) trousers that end at or above the knee
hot pants: skin-tight very short pants worn by young women as an outer garment

Other hyponyms of shorts include Bermuda shorts, Jamaica shorts, lederhosen.

shorts (noun)	hot pants (noun)
(used in the plural) trousers that end at or above the knee	skin-tight very short pants worn by young women as an outer garment
underpants worn by men	a state of sexual arousal