Word.ws English Dictionary

hangs back

hangs back is the third-person singular simple present indicative of hang back.

Meaning of hang back

Verb

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

  1. (informal) To wait; to falter; to avoid proceeding through reluctance.
    • '[…] Perhaps just at present he may be undecided; the smallness of your fortune may make him hang back; his friends may all advise him against it. But some of those little attentions and encouragements which ladies can so easily give, will fix him, in spite of himself […]'1811, [Jane Austen], chapter XI, in Sense and Sensibility […], volume II, London: […] C[harles] Roworth, […], and published by T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC

Questions about hangs back

What is hangs back the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Hangs back is the third-person singular simple present indicative of hang back.

Words near hangs back in the dictionary

  1. hangs a shingle
  2. hangs a uey
  3. hangs about
  4. hangs an arse
  5. hangs around
  6. hangs back
  7. hangs behind
  8. hangs by a hair
  9. hangs by a thread
  10. hangs by the eyelids
  11. hangs fire

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hangs back (page history and authors); hang back (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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