Word.ws English Dictionary

hang out to dry

hang out to dry verb: to abandon someone who is in need or in danger, especially a colleague or one dependent.

Verb

hang out to dry (third-person singular simple present hangs out to dry, present participle hanging out to dry, simple past and past participle hung out to dry)

  1. (idiomatic, transitive) To abandon someone who is in need or in danger, especially a colleague or one dependent.
    • I'll take advantage while / You hang me out to dry1989, Kurt Cobain, “About a Girl”, in Bleach, performed by Nirvana
    • Without supplemental health insurance, we would have been hung out to dry.2008 March 7, Joe Fiorito, “Our home-care system hangs families out to dry”, in Toronto Star, archived from the original on 02 Dec 2008
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see hang, out, dry.

hang out to dry meaning in Arabic

hang out to dry in Arabic

abandon someone in need
أن تترك شخصا في حاجة

Synonyms of hang out to dry

Forms of hang out to dry

third-person singular presenthangs out to dry
present participlehanging out to dry
past participlehung out to dry
pasthung out to dry

Questions about hang out to dry

What does hang out to dry mean?
Hang out to dry means to abandon someone who is in need or in danger, especially a colleague or one dependent.
What is hang out to dry in Arabic?
Hang out to dry in Arabic is أن تترك شخصا في حاجة. See Hang out to dry meaning in Arabic.
What part of speech is hang out to dry?
Hang out to dry is a verb.
What is the past tense of hang out to dry?
The past tense of hang out to dry is hung out to dry.

Words near hang out to dry in the dictionary

  1. hang one's lip
  2. hang onto
  3. hang onto your hat
  4. hang out
  5. hang out one's shingle
  6. hang out to dry
  7. hang over
  8. hang over someone's head
  9. hang paper
  10. hang round
  11. hang ten

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hang out to dry (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-hang out to dry.ogg.

Cite this entry: “hang out to dry.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hang_out_to_dry. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.