Word.ws English Dictionary

hangs fire

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

Meaning of hang fire

Verb

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

  1. To fail to fire immediately when the trigger is pulled.
    • […] a number of Portuguese soldiers entered, one of whom, taking me for a Frenchman, for I had the French soldier's jacket on, my own being wet, snapped his piece at me, which luckily hung fire.1841, Edward Costello, The adventures of a soldier
  2. (figuratively) To wait or hold back.
    • We were told to hang fire on the decision until management came back with a proposal.

See all 3 meanings of hang fire

Questions about hangs fire

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

Words near hangs fire in the dictionary

  1. hangs back
  2. hangs behind
  3. hangs by a hair
  4. hangs by a thread
  5. hangs by the eyelids
  6. hangs fire
  7. hangs five
  8. hangs heavy
  9. hangs in
  10. hangs in the balance
  11. hangs loose

Source and license

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