hangtail

hangtail adverb: with the tail hanging limply.

Adverb

hangtail (comparative more hangtail, superlative most hangtail)

With the tail hanging limply.
- The dog trotted hangtail away, and the prairie dog turned his head to check on a flush.1964, Kulchur - Volume 4, page 50
- The dog dropped, hang-head, hang-tail.1967, Joyce Stranger, Rex: A Novel, page 184

hangtail (comparative more hangtail, superlative most hangtail)

Disheartened; low-spirited.
- Most bridegrooms look ashamed and hangtail.1952, Rhys Davies, Marianne, page 157
- When in this sad hangtail mood, even the healthy bites of aggressive fleas could not distract him, so deeply was he immersed in despondency.1969, Joe Johnson, Courtin', Sportin', and Non-supportin', page 89

At least a hundred hairless dogs, which had been barking fiercely, slunk hangtail through the ruptures that served these huts as doorholes.1971, Douglas Woolf, Ya!: John-Juan; Two Novels, page 207:
As they climbed into the van Potter clapped the trooper on the shoulder and Budd responded with as hangtail a smile as the agent had ever in his life encountered.1996, Jeffery Deaver, A Maiden's Grave:
And right now you were feeling a little hangtail.2001, Jack Curtis, The Sheriff Kill, page 45:

From hang + tail, from the way a dog will leave its tail drooping or hanging when frightened or sad.

What does hangtail mean?: Hangtail means with the tail hanging limply.
How do you use hangtail in a sentence?: At least a hundred hairless dogs, which had been barking fiercely, slunk hangtail through the ruptures that served these huts as doorholes.
What part of speech is hangtail?: Hangtail can be an adverb or an adjective.

Adapted from Wiktionary: hangtail (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: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “hangtail.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hangtail. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.