Hung

How to spell hung

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce hung

What does hung mean?

1. verbPast tense and past participle of hang: fixed or suspended something so it hangs down.
2. adjectiveDescribing a parliament or jury in which no side holds a clear majority and no decision can be reached.

Hung in a sentence

• verb

  She hung the wet towels over the radiator to dry.

• adjective

  The election produced a hung parliament with no party in control.

• verb

  The framed photographs hung slightly crooked on the wall.

• adjective

  A hung jury forced the judge to declare a mistrial.

Where does hung come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word descends from Old English, where two related verbs sat side by side: hon, a strong verb meaning 'to suspend', and hangian, a weaker verb meaning 'to hang or be suspended'. These tangled together over the centuries, and they share roots with the Old Norse hanga and the Germanic ancestor that also gave German hangen. The form 'hung' arose as the strong past tense, formed by the old Germanic habit of changing the vowel inside a verb rather than adding an ending, the same pattern that gives sing and sung or ring and rung. English later split the past forms by meaning: 'hung' covers pictures, coats, and curtains, while the regular 'hanged' was reserved for execution by the neck. That neat division, though often blurred in speech, is why the spelling and usage of 'hung' still carry a small trap for careful writers.

How the word is built

• hang (Old English hangian/hon: to suspend)
• vowel change to -u- (strong-verb past form)