Word.ws English Dictionary

hanger on

hanger on is the alternative form of hanger-on.

Meaning of hanger-on

Noun

hanger-on (plural hangers-on)

  1. Someone who hangs on, or sticks to, a person, place, or service.
    • Her love was sought, I do aver, / By twenty beaux and more; / The king himself has follow'd her / When she has walk'd before. / But now her wealth and finery fled, / Her hangers-on cut short all […]c. 1760-1774, Oliver Goldsmith, An Elegy on the Glory of her Sex, Mrs Mary Blaze
  2. (historical) An onsetter.

Forms of hanger on

pluralhangers on

Questions about hanger on

What is hanger on the alternative form of?
Hanger on is the alternative form of hanger-on.

Words near hanger on in the dictionary

  1. hangees
  2. hangehange
  3. hangehanges
  4. hanger
  5. hanger and flogger
  6. hanger on
  7. hanger steak
  8. hanger steaks
  9. hanger-on
  10. hanger-outer
  11. hangerless

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hanger on (page history and authors); hanger-on (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: “hanger on.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hanger_on. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.