Word.ws English Dictionary

hung out to dry

hung out to dry is the simple past and past participle of hang out to dry.

Meaning of hang out to dry

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic, transitive) To abandon someone who is in need or in danger, especially a colleague or one dependent.
    • I'll take advantage while / You hang me out to dry1989, Kurt Cobain, “About a Girl”, in Bleach, performed by Nirvana
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see hang, out, dry.

Questions about hung out to dry

What is hung out to dry the simple past and past participle of?
Hung out to dry is the simple past and past participle of hang out to dry.

Words near hung out to dry in the dictionary

  1. hung one's head
  2. hung one's lip
  3. hung onto
  4. hung out
  5. hung out one's shingle
  6. hung out to dry
  7. hung over
  8. hung over someone's head
  9. hung parliament
  10. hung parliaments
  11. hung round

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hung out to dry (page history and authors); hang out to dry (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: “hung out to dry.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hung_out_to_dry. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.