Word.ws English Dictionary

not enough to hang a dog on

not enough to hang a dog on phrase: of evidence, not strong or compelling; being very little or insubstantial evidence.

Phrase

not enough to hang a dog on

  1. (idiomatic) Of evidence, not strong or compelling; being very little or insubstantial evidence.
    • If the evidence had been given at once, I should have said that it looked bad, perhaps, but was not enough to hang a dog on. But after five years of bitter faction?1899, G.W. Steevens, The Tragedy of Dreyfus, page 89
    • "So there we were, and probably you'll agree with me that all the evidence, so far, was less than you'd hang a dog on."1933, James Hilton, Lost Horizon, published 1973, page 62

Questions about not enough to hang a dog on

What does not enough to hang a dog on mean?
Not enough to hang a dog on means of evidence, not strong or compelling; being very little or insubstantial evidence.
What part of speech is not enough to hang a dog on?
Not enough to hang a dog on is a phrase.

Words near not enough to hang a dog on in the dictionary

  1. not do someone any favours
  2. not dog
  3. not dogs
  4. not done
  5. not enough room to swing a cat
  6. not enough to hang a dog on
  7. not equal sign
  8. not equal signs
  9. not even
  10. not even once
  11. not even one

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: not enough to hang a dog 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.

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