hang up

Formshangs up, hanging up, hung up

1. 1
   phrasal verbidiomaticintransitive

   To end a telephone call; originally, to do it by setting the receiver back on its hook or cradle, which disconnected the line.

   He was so angry that he hung up on me in the middle of a sentence.

   Please stay on the line and don't hang up until an agent answers.

   Similardisconnect

   Note

   Adding on makes it pointed: to hang up on someone is to cut them off, usually in anger or impatience, as when a caller threatens to hang up on a fussing mother. Without on it is simply the ordinary end of a call, and it can take the phone as its object, as in Cat's in the Cradle (1974), whose closing verse ends a call this way.

2. 2
   phrasal verbtransitive

   To put something in a place where it can hang, such as on a hook, hanger, or line.

   After the move, it took us weeks to hang up all the pictures.

   Volunteers hung up lights and banners along Main Street before the parade.

   Note

   Up moves freely around a noun object: hang up your coat, or hang your coat up. A pronoun has to sit in the middle, so people say hang it up, never hang up it, and a long object keeps up beside the verb: hang up the coats piled by the door.

3. 3
   noun · hang-upcolloquialcountable

   An emotional difficulty or psychological inhibition, often about one particular subject.

   Years of teasing at school left her with a hang-up about her height.

   The comedian jokes openly about his hang-ups over money and success.

   Similarcomplex, inhibition, issue, problem

   Note

   It comes most often in the plural, with about introducing what it concerns: hang-ups about the body, about money, about sex. The noun is hyphenated, sometimes closed up as hangups, while the verb it comes from stays two words: you hang up at the end of a call, but you have a hang-up. Complex and neurosis are its clinical-sounding cousins; hang-up is the informal word.

4. 4
   phrasal verbtransitive

   To keep someone or something delayed, held up, or stuck, so that matters are left on hold.

   A dispute over funding has hung up the bill in committee since spring.

   One missing customs form can hang up a whole shipment at the port.

   Similardelay, stall, hinder

5. 5
   phrasal verbtransitive

   To quit or give up an activity, stopping it or abandoning it altogether.

   After three knee surgeries, the shortstop decided it was time to hang up his cleats.

   After one more losing season, the coach said he was ready to hang it up.

   Similarquit

   Note

   Retirement is the picture behind it: the tools of a trade go on a hook for good, so the object is often the gear itself, a flute, a pair of gloves, a set of cleats. With a plain it, hang it up means quitting whatever you have been doing, and it often marks the end of a career.

6. 6
   noun · hang-upcountable

   An unforeseen problem that holds up progress or causes a delay.

   A last-minute hang-up with the permits pushed the restaurant's opening back a week.

   Despite a few technical hang-ups, the launch went ahead on schedule.

   Similarhiccup

   Note

   This is the practical cousin of the emotional hang-up: a snag in a plan rather than in a person, close to hitch, hiccup and setback. It is the noun of the "hold up" verb: a hang-up with the permits is something that hangs the opening up. Jack Kerouac's 1951 scroll of On the Road still writes it open: "What a hang up I got into at once!"

7. 7
   phrasal verbtransitive

   To distress someone, or to put them at a disadvantage or do them harm.

   The breakup hung him up for months, and he barely left the apartment.

   Her lack of experience hung her up in the final round of interviews.

   Similartrouble, upset, hurt, hinder

8. 8
   phrasal verbtransitive

   To take someone into custody or have them locked up in prison.

   The cops hung up half the crowd for disorderly conduct before midnight.

   The judge hung up the forger for five years, the longest sentence the law allowed.

   Similarjail, imprison

   Note

   It usually comes in the passive, with the place of confinement after in: the singer of Charlie Daniels's Trudy (1971) asks that she be told he's hung up in Dallas, where they won't let him out of jail. Because the "stuck" meaning is so close, a mention of jail or prison is what makes the arrest clear.

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