hang
verb · noun
Simple meaning
Decorate or furnish with something suspended.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
hangIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈhæŋ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
Decorate or furnish with something suspended
intransitive
To be or remain suspended.
intransitive
To float, as if suspended.
Be suspended or poised
transitive
To hold or bear in a suspended or inclined manner or position instead of erect.
transitive
To cause (something) to be suspended, as from a hook, hanger, hinges, or the like.
noun
A percussion instrument invented and built by PANArt Hangbau AG, somewhat resembling a steelpan, consisting of two metal half shells with tuned notes on the top side that produces a mellow and ethereal sound.
colloquial
A person that someone hangs out with.
colloquial
The smallest amount of concern or consideration; a damn.
A slackening of motion.
A sharp or steep declivity or slope.
informalfiguratively
A grip, understanding.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary (estimated)
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Decorate or furnish with something suspended
Used this way, hang is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use hang
- “The murderer was hanged on Friday.”verb
- “Picasso hangs in this new wing of the museum.”verb
- “This worry hangs on my mind.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Decoration that is hung (as a tapestry) on a wall or over a window.
A worker who hangs something.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Fix to.
Spend time in a certain location or with certain people.
Be connected.
An emotional preoccupation.
A chad that is incompletely removed and hanging by one corner.
Any of various mecopterous insects of the family Bittacidae.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
An executioner who hangs the condemned person.
A rope that is used by a hangman to execute persons who have been condemned to death by hanging.
A rope that is used by a hangman to execute persons who have been condemned to death by hanging.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.