hang
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: enpr: hăng
ipa: /hæŋ/
rhymes: -æŋ
Forms: form: hangs
form: hanging
form: hung
form: hung
form: hanged
topics: law
form: hanged
topics: law
form: no-table-tags
form: glossary
form: hang
form: hang
form: hung
form: hanged
form: hang
form: hangest
form: hung
form: hanged
form: hungest
form: hangedst
form: hangs
form: hangeth
form: hung
form: hanged
form: hang
form: hung
form: hanged
form: hang
form: hung
form: hanged
form: hang
form: -
form: hanging
form: hung
form: hanged
Etymology: From Middle English hangen, hongen, from a fusion of Old English hōn (“to hang, be hanging”, transitive verb) and hangian (“to hang, cause to hang”, intransitive verb), from Proto-West Germanic *hą̄han and *hangēn; also probably influenced by Old Norse hengja (“to suspend”) and hanga (“to be suspended”); all from Proto-Germanic *hanhaną, *hangāną, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱenk- (“to waver, be in suspense”).
See also Dutch hangen, Low German hangen and hängen, German hängen, Norwegian Bokmål henge, Norwegian Nynorsk henga; also Gothic 𐌷𐌰𐌷𐌰𐌽 (hāhan), Hittite 𒂵𒀀𒀭𒂵 (/⁠kānk-⁠/, “to hang”), Sanskrit शङ्कते (śáṅkate, “is in doubt, hesitates”), Latin cūnctārī (“to delay”).
Senses: examples: text: The lights hung from the ceiling.
text: On the dark-green walls hung a series of eight engravings, portraits of early Victorian belles, clad in lace and tarletan ball dresses, clipped from an old Book of Beauty. Mrs. Bunting was very fond of these pictures; she thought they gave the drawing-room a note of elegance and refinement.
ref: 1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter II, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., […], [1933], →OCLC, page 0111:
glosses: To be or remain suspended.
examples: text: The smoke hung in the room.
text: It was a couple of days after the crash, with the smell of burning still hanging in the air from the incinerated wreckage of Coach H, where 31 passengers lost their lives, when I visited the West London site.
ref: 2023 September 20, Nigel Harris, “Comment Special: And it's goodbye from me...”, in RAIL, number 992, page 3:
glosses: To float, as if suspended.
examples: text: The jockey claimed that the horse hung towards the outside[…]
ref: 1979, Council of Law Reporting for New South Wales, New South Wales Law Reports (non-fiction), New South Wales: Council of Law Reporting for New South Wales, published 1979, page 16:
glosses: To veer in one direction.
topics: hobbies
lifestyle
sports
tennis
glosses: To rebound unexpectedly or unusually slowly, due to backward spin on the ball or imperfections of the ground.
raw_tags: of a ball in cricket
examples: text: He hung his head in shame.
glosses: To hold or bear in a suspended or inclined manner or position instead of erect.
examples: text: Hang those lights from the ceiling.
text: to hang a door
text: It is impossible but that offences will come: but woe unto him, through whom they come! It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Luke 17:1-2:
glosses: To cause (something) to be suspended, as from a hook, hanger, hinges, or the like.
examples: text: The culprits were hanged from the nearest tree.
text: '[…] There's every Staffordshire crime-piece ever made in this cabinet, and that's unique. The Van Hoyer Museum in New York hasn't that very rare second version of Maria Marten's Red Barn over there, nor the little Frederick George Manning—he was the criminal Dickens saw hanged on the roof of the gaol in Horsemonger Lane, by the way—'
ref: 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 3, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:
text: As things go from bad to worse for Putin in his maniacal, murderous attack on Ukraine, he could end up like Milosevic, or worse. The court could change its rules and hang him, the way the Allies hanged Nazi war criminals at the end of World War II.
ref: 2022 March 10, Peter Lucas, “Lucas: Putin has blood on his hands and The Hague must make him pay”, in Boston Herald, archived from the original on 06 Aug 2022:
topics: law
glosses: To kill (someone) by suspension from the neck, usually as a form of execution or suicide.
examples: text: You will hang for this, my friend.
topics: law
glosses: To be executed by suspension by one's neck from a gallows, a tree, or other raised bar, attached by a rope tied into a noose.
examples: text: Helena
That depends on how much of the factory you show me.
Domin
Oh, hang the factory. Oh, no, no, you shall see everything, Miss Glory. Indeed you shall. Won't you sit down?
ref: c. 1921 (date written), Karel Čapek, translated by Paul Selver, R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots): A Fantastic Melodrama […], Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1923, →OCLC, Act 1:
text: [H]e suddenly flung down his brush on the floor, said "Bother!" and "Oh blow!" and also "Hang spring-cleaning!" and bolted out of the house without even waiting to put on his coat.
ref: 1908, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, London: Wordsworth Classics, published 1993, page 11:
glosses: (used in maledictions) To damn.
examples: text: I didn't see anything, officer. I was just hanging.
text: He banned spearfishing wherever he could, started the first eco-moorings in the Caribbean, stopped others from coral- and shell-collecting, and had so much fun 24/7 that some unusually powerful people began to hang with him.
ref: 2006, Scuba Diving, numbers 1-6, page 49:
synonyms: hang out
glosses: To loiter; to hang around; to spend time idly.
glosses: To exhibit (an object) by hanging.
examples: text: Let's hang this cute animal design in the nursery.
glosses: To apply (wallpaper or drywall to a wall).
examples: text: Let's hang the nursery with some new wallpaper.
glosses: To decorate (something) with hanging objects.
examples: text: Exploring, I found another short gallery running transversely to the first. This appeared to be devoted to minerals, and the sight of a block of sulphur set my mind running on gunpowder. But I could find no saltpetre; indeed, no nitrates of any kind. Doubtless they had deliquesced ages ago. Yet the sulphur hung in my mind, and set up a train of thinking.
ref: 1895 May 29, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, “The Palace of Green Porcelain”, in The Time Machine: An Invention, London: William Heinemann, →OCLC, page 110:
glosses: To remain persistently in one's thoughts.
examples: text: One obstinate juror can hang a jury.
glosses: To prevent from reaching a decision, especially by refusing to join in a verdict that must be unanimous.
examples: text: The computer has hung again. Not even pressing <Ctrl>+<Alt>+<Del> works.
text: When I push this button the program hangs.
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
glosses: To stop responding to manual input devices such as the keyboard and mouse.
examples: text: The program has a bug that can hang the system.
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
glosses: To cause (a program or computer) to stop responding.
examples: text: If you move there, you'll hang your rook.
topics: board-games
chess
games
glosses: To cause (a piece) to become vulnerable to capture.
examples: text: In this standard opening position White has to be careful because the pawn on e4 hangs.
topics: board-games
chess
games
glosses: To be vulnerable to capture.
examples: text: McDougald then singled, and with a 3-2 count on Ellie Howard who was playing first base, Spahn hung a curve ball and Howard hit it over the wire fence in left field for a 4-4 tie.
ref: 2010, Peter Golenbock, Dynasty: The New York Yankees, 1949-1964, →ISBN, page 409:
topics: ball-games
baseball
games
hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: To throw a hittable off-speed pitch.
raw_tags: of a pitcher
examples: text: There were no whisperings, even from his opponents, that he was no better than he ought to be. Because, there was nothing wrong on which to hang a charge. As an eloquent orator, he carried with him the firm support of a good name.
ref: 1848, The American Pulpit, volume 3, Samuel Chism, published 1848, page 120:
text: Papa had wanted to call me Beverly Mary; Mary after the Blessed Virgin. Mama said she wouldn't hang a name like Beverly Mary on a pet skunk.
ref: 1989, Faith Sullivan, The Cape Ann, Penguin, published 1989, →ISBN, page 2:
glosses: To attach or cause to stick (a charge or accusation, etc.).
Synonyms: sense: be or remain suspended
word: be suspend
sense: be or remain suspended
word: dangle
sense: float as if suspended
word: float
sense: float as if suspended
word: hover
sense: execute (someone) by suspension from the neck
word: lynch
word: string up
word: kill by hanging
sense: be executed
word: go to the gallows
word: swing
word: take a ride to Tyburn
word: die by hanging
sense: loiter
word: hang about
sense: loiter
word: hang around
sense: loiter
word: loiter
sense: computing: stop responding
word: freeze
word: lock up
sense: cause (something) to be suspended
word: suspend
sense: hold or bear in a suspended or inclined manner or position instead of erect
word: drop
sense: hold or bear in a suspended or inclined manner or position instead of erect
word: lower
sense: to place on a hook
word: hook
sense: to place on a hook
word: hook up
sense: to put a telephone handset back on a hook
word: hang up
sense: exhibit
word: exhibit
sense: exhibit
word: show
sense: apply (wallpaper to a wall)
word: put up
sense: decorate (something) with hanging objects
word: bedeck
sense: decorate (something) with hanging objects
word: deck
sense: decorate (something) with hanging objects
word: decorate
sense: computing: cause (a program or computer) to stop responding
word: freeze
Derived terms: behang
forhang
give a dog a bad name and hang him
give someone enough rope and they'll hang themself
go hang
hangability
hangable
hang about
hang a left
hang a leg
hang a Louie
hang an arse
hang a Ralph
hang a right
hang around
hang a shingle
hang a uey
hang back
hang behind
hangbird
hangboard
hang-by
hang by a hair
hang by a thread
hang by the eyelids
hang dog
hangdog
hang, draw and quarter
hangee
hanger
hang fire
hang five
hang-glide
hang glide
hang-glider
hang glider
hang gliding
hang heavy
hang in
hanging
hanging ball
hanging out of one's arse
hanging rice
hang in the balance
hang in there
hang it
hangle
hang loose
hang low
hangman
hang me
hangnail
hangnest
hang off
hang on
hang one on
hang one's hat
hang one's hat on
hang one's head
hang one's lip
hang on every word
hang onto
hang onto your hat
hang out
hang-out
hangout
hang out one's shingle
hang out to dry
hangover
hang over
hang over someone's head
hang paper
hang round
hangtag
hangtail
hang ten
hang the moon
hang tight
hangtime
hang time
hang to
hang together
hang-tough
hang tough
hang up
hang-up
hangup
hang upon
hang up one's boots
hang up one's fiddle
hang up one's hat
hang up one's spurs
hang up the boots
hang with
hangwoman
hangworthy
home is where you hang your hat
how's it hanging
I'll be hanged
leave hanging
let it all hang out
let one's nuts hang
mishang
not enough to hang a dog on
one may as well hang for a sheep as a lamb
overhang
rehang
straphang
underhang
unhang
uphang