Hanger

How to spell hanger

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce hanger

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does hanger mean?

1. nounA shaped frame, usually of wire, wood, or plastic, used to hold a garment so it can be hung up.
2. nounA fitting, bracket, or loop from which something is hung or by which it is supported.

Hanger in a sentence

• She draped the wet shirt over a wooden hanger to dry.

• The picture rail had a brass hanger for each frame.

• Every jacket in the wardrobe needs its own hanger.

• The plumber fixed a pipe hanger to the wall to hold the run in place.

Where does hanger come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is built from the native English verb 'hang', which traces back to the Old English 'hangian', meaning 'to be suspended', and the closely related transitive forms that carried the sense 'to suspend something'. These in turn descend from a Germanic root shared with the Old Norse 'hanga' and the Dutch 'hangen', all carrying the basic idea of dangling or being held up from above. The agent suffix '-er', also of Germanic origin, was added to name a thing (or person) that performs the action, so a hanger is literally 'a thing that hangs something'. The familiar sense of a shaped frame for clothes is a relatively modern, practical extension that became common as wardrobes and shop displays spread in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The main spelling trap is the look-alike 'hangar', the building for aircraft, which came into English from French and is unrelated despite sounding almost identical.

How the word is built

• hang (to suspend, from Old English hangian)
• -er (agent/instrument suffix: thing that does the action)

Words that sound like hanger

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• hangar: A large building where aircraft are housed, maintained, or repaired.