Word.ws English Dictionary

hang in the balance

hang in the balance verb: to be in a precarious situation, unsure of the future.

Verb

hang in the balance (third-person singular simple present hangs in the balance, present participle hanging in the balance, simple past and past participle hung in the balance)

  1. (idiomatic) To be in a precarious situation, unsure of the future.
    • His life was left hanging in the balance after he was shot in the side.

Forms of hang in the balance

third-person singular presenthangs in the balance
present participlehanging in the balance
past participlehung in the balance
pasthung in the balance

Questions about hang in the balance

What does hang in the balance mean?
Hang in the balance means to be in a precarious situation, unsure of the future.
What part of speech is hang in the balance?
Hang in the balance is a verb.
What is the past tense of hang in the balance?
The past tense of hang in the balance is hung in the balance.

Words near hang in the balance in the dictionary

  1. hang gliders
  2. hang gliding
  3. Hang Hau
  4. hang heavy
  5. hang in
  6. hang in the balance
  7. hang it
  8. hang loose
  9. hang loose sign
  10. hang loose signs
  11. hang low

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hang in the balance (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-hang in the balance.ogg.

Cite this entry: “hang in the balance.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hang_in_the_balance. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.