hangdog
hangdog noun: a base, degraded person.
Noun
hangdog (plural hangdogs)
- A base, degraded person.
- Synonyms:
- sneak, gallows bird, crack-hemp, crack-rope, gallows, hang dog, hempie, scapegallows, slip-halter, wag-halter
Adjective
hangdog (not comparable)
- Low; sneaking; ashamed.
- The poor colonel went out of the room with a hangdog look.1852, William Makepeace Thackeray, The History of Henry Esmond
- Asper Argo, the Well-Beloved, Commdor of the Korellian Republic greeted his wife’s entry by a hangdog lowering of his scanty eyebrows. To her at least, his self-adopted epithet did not apply. Even he knew that.1951, Isaac Asimov, Foundation (1974 Panther Books Ltd publication), part V: “The Merchant Princes”, chapter 16, page 180
Verb
hangdog (third-person singular simple present hangdogs, present participle hangdogging, simple past and past participle hangdogged)
- To move or loiter in a sneaking or ashamed manner.
- With a twenty-one to three victory, Pinewood high-stepped it off the field while our Falcons hangdogged their way to the locker room.2012, Wendy Delsol, Flock, page 230
- Just a few stragglers left hangdogging around, latchkey types with no place to be, cutting up in the dim and bleachered gym perimeter.2017, David Eric Tomlinson, The Midnight Man, page 37
hangdog meaning in Malayalam and Kannada
hangdog in Malayalam
- abashed, shamefaced, sheepish
- ഇളിഭ്യനായ, ലജ്ജിച്ചു തലതാഴ്ത്തിയ, ഏറ്റം ലജ്ജിച്ച, സലജ്ജം, ലജ്ജാപൂർവ്വം, അധോമുഖ
hangdog in Kannada
- ನಾಚಿಕೆ ಇಲ್ಲದವ, ಲಜ್ಜೆಗೆಟ್ಟವ, ನೀಚ
Synonyms of hangdog
Forms of hangdog
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | hangdogs |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | hangdogs |
| present participle | hangdogging |
| past participle | hangdogged |
| past | hangdogged |
Origin of hangdog
From hang + dog.
Words formed from hangdog
Questions about hangdog
- What does hangdog mean?
- Hangdog means a base, degraded person.
- What is hangdog in Malayalam?
- Hangdog in Malayalam is ഇളിഭ്യനായ, ലജ്ജിച്ചു തലതാഴ്ത്തിയ, ഏറ്റം ലജ്ജിച്ച. See Hangdog meaning in Malayalam.
- What part of speech is hangdog?
- Hangdog can be a noun, an adjective or a verb.
- What is the plural of hangdog?
- The plural of hangdog is hangdogs.
Words near hangdog in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: hangdog (page history and authors); hangdog (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); hangdog (Kannada Wiktionary) (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:
Cite this entry: “hangdog.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hangdog. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.