dangles

Verb

dangle (third-person singular simple present dangles, present participle dangling, simple past and past participle dangled)

1. (intransitive) To hang loosely with the ability to swing.
   • His feet are dangling in the water.
2. (intransitive, slang) The action of performing a move or deke with the puck in order to get past a defender or goalie; perhaps because of the resemblance to dangling the puck on a string.
   • He dangled around three players and the goalie to score.
3. (transitive) To hang or trail something loosely.
   • I like to sit on the edge and dangle my feet in the water.
4. (broadly, figuratively, transitive) To put forth as a possibility.
   • That it happens to have been produced under the imprimatur of Michael Bay dangles the possibility of poor taste, but unfortunately, bombast and conspicuous consumption are nowhere to be found.2020 December 10, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, “The first movie inspired by the pandemic is here, and it sucks”, in The Onion AV Club, archived from the original on 21 Dec 2020
5. (dated, intransitive) To trail or follow around.
   • To dangle at the elbow of a wench who can't make up her mind to accept the common title of wife, till she has been courted a certain number of weeks — so the old blinker, her father, says.1833, Miller's Modern Acting Drama
6. (intransitive) Of a patient: to be positioned with the legs hanging over the edge of the bed.
   • Record the time and duration of dangling, patient's pulse and respirations and patient's general tolerance of the procedure. […] The next step usually in getting the patient out of bed is sitting […]1976, R. Winifred Heyward Johnson, Douglass W. Johnson, Introduction to Nursing Care, page 139

See all 10 meanings of dangle