Hangout

How to spell hangout

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce hangout

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does hangout mean?

1. nounA place where a person or group regularly spends time and feels comfortable.

Hangout in a sentence

• The corner café was their favourite hangout after work.

• The old warehouse became a popular hangout for local artists.

Where does hangout come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a compound built from two very old native English words. The first part, hang, descends from the Old English hangian, meaning 'to be suspended', which blended with related Old Norse and Germanic forms over the centuries. The second part, out, comes from the Old English ut, meaning 'away' or 'outside'. The phrasal verb 'to hang out' was used in informal English from the early 1800s to mean loitering or spending time idly somewhere, and by the mid 1800s American slang had fused the two words into the single noun 'hangout' for a favourite haunt or resort. Because it is a transparent compound, the spelling holds no real surprises: you simply write the two familiar pieces hang and out with nothing between them.

How the word is built

• hang (from Old English hangian: to be suspended)
• out (from Old English ut: away, outside) forming a compound noun