| Library / English Dictionary |
DANGLING
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
The act of suspending something (hanging it from above so it moves freely)
Example:
there was a small ceremony for the hanging of the portrait
Synonyms:
dangling; hanging; suspension
Classified under:
Nouns denoting acts or actions
Hypernyms ("dangling" is a kind of...):
support; supporting (the act of bearing the weight of or strengthening)
Derivation:
dangle (cause to dangle or hang freely)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
-ing form of the verb dangle
Context examples:
And now I see the outside of our house, with the latticed bedroom-windows standing open to let in the sweet-smelling air, and the ragged old rooks'-nests still dangling in the elm-trees at the bottom of the front garden.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
The thin cord dangling down the face of the brown cliff seemed from above to reach little more than half-way down it.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
But whilst they were getting all ready, they heard the trampling of a horse at a distance, which so frightened them that they pushed their prisoner neck and shoulders together into a sack, and swung him up by a cord to the tree, where they left him dangling, and ran away.
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
The master of this shop was sitting at the door in his shirt-sleeves, smoking; and as there were a great many coats and pairs of trousers dangling from the low ceiling, and only two feeble candles burning inside to show what they were, I fancied that he looked like a man of a revengeful disposition, who had hung all his enemies, and was enjoying himself.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
They could only have come from the old man at my side, and yet he sat now as absorbed as ever, very thin, very wrinkled, bent with age, an opium pipe dangling down from between his knees, as though it had dropped in sheer lassitude from his fingers.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
It was but a short walk, and yet it took us some time, for my uncle stalked along with great dignity, his lace-bordered handkerchief in one hand, and his cane with the clouded amber head dangling from the other.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
He screwed up his string to the furthest pitch, and shot his quarrel at the dangling shield.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Among the great beams, bulks, and ringbolts of the ship, and the emigrant-berths, and chests, and bundles, and barrels, and heaps of miscellaneous baggage—“lighted up, here and there, by dangling lanterns; and elsewhere by the yellow daylight straying down a windsail or a hatchway—were crowded groups of people, making new friendships, taking leave of one another, talking, laughing, crying, eating and drinking; some, already settled down into the possession of their few feet of space, with their little households arranged, and tiny children established on stools, or in dwarf elbow-chairs; others, despairing of a resting-place, and wandering disconsolately.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
He wore rather baggy grey shepherd’s check trousers, a not over-clean black frock-coat, unbuttoned in the front, and a drab waistcoat with a heavy brassy Albert chain, and a square pierced bit of metal dangling down as an ornament.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
The other end was secured to the rope, so that in a minute a good strong cord was dangling from the only sound side of the blazing and shattered tower.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
