| / English Dictionary |
HANGING
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
The act of suspending something (hanging it from above so it moves freely)
Example:
there was a small ceremony for the hanging of the portrait
Synonyms:
dangling; hanging; suspension
Classified under:
Nouns denoting acts or actions
Hypernyms ("hanging" is a kind of...):
support; supporting (the act of bearing the weight of or strengthening)
Derivation:
hang (be suspended or poised)
Sense 2
Meaning:
A form of capital punishment; victim is suspended by the neck from a gallows or gibbet until dead
Example:
in those days the hanging of criminals was a public entertainment
Classified under:
Nouns denoting acts or actions
Hypernyms ("hanging" is a kind of...):
capital punishment; death penalty; executing; execution (putting a condemned person to death)
Derivation:
hang (kill by hanging)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Decoration that is hung (as a tapestry) on a wall or over a window
Example:
the cold castle walls were covered with hangings
Synonyms:
hanging; wall hanging
Classified under:
Nouns denoting man-made objects
Hypernyms ("hanging" is a kind of...):
decoration; ornament; ornamentation (something used to beautify)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "hanging"):
dossal; dossel (an ornamental hanging of rich fabric hung behind the altar of a church or at the sides of a chancel)
Kakemono (a Japanese (paper or silk) wall hanging; usually narrow with a picture or writing on it and a roller at the bottom)
lambrequin (short and decorative hanging for a shelf edge or top of a window casing)
arras; tapestry (a wall hanging of heavy handwoven fabric often with pictorial designs)
Derivation:
hang (cause to be hanging or suspended)
hang (be suspended or hanging)
hang (decorate or furnish with something suspended)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
-ing form of the verb hang
Context examples:
The Mariposa was deeply loaded, and, hanging by his hands, his feet would be in the water.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
Ruined castles hanging on the precipices of piny mountains, the impetuous Arve, and cottages every here and there peeping forth from among the trees formed a scene of singular beauty.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
The Maltese is a small, hardy companion dog with a thick, heavy coat hanging straight to the ground on each side of a center part line.
(Maltese, NCI Thesaurus)
I shall wear a large bonnet, and bring one of my little baskets hanging on my arm.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
The promised notification was hanging over her head.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
Thorpe talked to his horse, and she meditated, by turns, on broken promises and broken arches, phaetons and false hangings, Tilneys and trap-doors.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
Surely there is some horrible doom hanging over us that every possible accident should thwart us in all we try to do.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
The tongs had fallen, and his hands were hanging free.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
He was hanging by them, head downward.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
The children are all hanging about her already, as if she was an old acquaintance.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
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