Chapter Hand the Sail to Hangmen of H by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Hang On (To). To cling to; to persevere; to be dependent on.

Hang Out Where do you hang out? Where are you living, or lodging? The allusion is to the custom, now restricted to public-houses, but once very general, of hanging before one's shop a sign indicating the nature of the business carried on within. Druggists often still place coloured bottles in their windows, and some tobacconists place near their shop door the statue of a Scotchman. (See Dickens: Pickwick Papers, chap. xxx.)

Hangdog Look (A). A guilty, shamefaced look.

"Look a little brisker, man, and not so hangdog-like." -Dickens.

Hang by a Thread (To). To be in a very precarious position. The allusion is to the sword of Damocles. (See Damocles' Sword.)

Hang in the Bell Ropes (To). to be asked at church, and then defer the marriage so that the bells hang fire.

Hanged or Strangled. Examples from the ancient classic writers: -
   (1) AC'HIUS, King of Lydia, endeavoured to raise a new tribute from his subjects and was hanged by the enraged populace, who threw the dead body into the river Pactolus.
   (2) AMA'TA, wife of King Latinus, promised her daughter Lavinia to King Turnus; when, however, she was given in marriage to Æneas, Amata hanged herself that she might not see the hated stranger. (Virgil: Æneid, vii.)
   (3) ARACH'NE, the most skilful of needle-women, hanged herself because she was outdone in a trial of skill by Minerva. (Ovid: Metamorphoses, vi. fab. 1.)
   (4) AUTOL'YCA, mother of Ulysses, hanged herself in despair on receiving false news of her son's death.
   (5) BONO'SUS, a Spaniard by birth, was strangled by the Emperor Probus for assuming the imperial purple in Gaul. (A.D. 280.)
   (6) IPHIS, a beautiful youth of Salamis, of mean birth, hanged himself because his addresses were rejected by Anaxarete, a girl of Salamis of similar rank in life. (Ovid: Metamorphoses, xiv. 708, etc.)
   (7) LATI'NUS, wife of. (See AMATA, above.)
   (8) LYCAM'BES, father of Neobula, who betrothed her to Archilochos, the poet. He broke his promise, and gave her in marriage to a wealthier man. Archilochos so scourged them by his satires that both father and daughter hanged themselves.
   (9) NEOBU'LA. (See above.)
   (10) PHYLLIS, Queen of Thrace, the accepted of Demophoön, who stopped on her coasts on his return from Troy. Demophoön was called away to Athens, and promised to return; but, failing so to do, Phyllis hanged herself.

Hanged, Drawn, and Quartered (See Drawn .)

Hanger (A). Properly the fringed loop or strap hung to the girdle by which the dagger was suspended, but applied by a common figure of speech to the sword or dagger itself.

"Men's swords in hangers hang fast by their side." - J. Taylor (1630).

Hanging Hanging and wiving go by destiny. "If a man is doomed to be hanged, he will never be drowned." And "marriages are made in heaven," we are told.

"If matrimony and hanging go
By dest'ny, why not whipping too?
What med'cine else can cure the fits
Of lovers when they lose their wits?
Love is a boy, by poets styled.
Then spare the rod and spoil the child."
Butler: Hudibras, part ii. canto i. 839-844.

Hanging Gale (The). The custom of taking six months' grace in the payment of rent which prevailed in Ireland.

"We went to collect the rents due the 25th March, but which, owing to the custom which prevails in Ireland known as `the hanging gale,' are never demanded till the 29th September." - The Times, November, 1885.

Hanging Gardens of Babylon Four acres of garden raised on a base supported by pillars, and towering in terraces one above another 300 feet in height. At a distance they looked like a vast pyramid covered with trees. This mound was constructed by Nebuchadnezzar to gratify his wife Amytis, who felt weary of the flat plains of Babylon, and longed for something to remind her of her native Median hills. One of the "seven wonders of the world."