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Hang on   /hæŋ ɑn/   Listen
Hang on

verb
1.
Fix to; attach.  Synonyms: append, tack, tack on, tag on.
2.
Be persistent, refuse to stop.  Synonyms: hang in, hold on, persevere, persist.  "The child persisted and kept asking questions"
3.
Hold the phone line open.  Synonyms: hold on, hold the line.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Hang on" Quotes from Famous Books



... the power to squander outside of our own territory that which is much needed in his country. And the thousands in money which he sends to Europe for something to hang on his walls would pay for a much needed improvement in some city or town in the country where ...
— Confiscation, An Outline • William Greenwood

... and is it not strange, my friend, that we should suffer the little that does really ripen, to rot, decay, and perish unenjoyed? Farewell! This is a glorious summer. I often climb into the trees in Charlotte's orchard, and shake down the pears that hang on the highest branches. She stands below, and catches them as ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe

... and disperse some cavalry, vaguely reported to be moving about somewhere in that quarter, a constant menace to the long trains from New Iberia. In fact Mouton, with the Texans, was now on the prairie, beyond the Calcasieu eighty miles away, in good position to retreat to Texas or to hang on the flank and rear of the Union army, as circumstances might suggest. On the 26th of April Paine marched sixteen miles to the Plaquemine Brule, and on the following day sent four companies on horseback twenty miles ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin

... hees tail upon de air, no wonder she was scare! But she hang on lak de winter on T'ree Reever. Cryin' out, "Please hol' me tight, or I'm comin' dead to-night, An' ma poor old moder dear, I got to ...
— Humour of the North • Lawrence J. Burpee

... lamp he recognized the features of Mart Wallen's four-year old Kitty. A sympathetic crowd had gathered. A young man poked a silk-hatted head from the carriage-window, and, with a face nearly the color of the Queen chrysanthemum in the lapel of his coat, besought Parks to hang on to his horses. A surly voice in the crowd said, "Damn your horses, and you too! If it hadn't been for this gentleman you'd have killed a dozen of these kids." Forrest's head was beginning to swim, but he took the ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King

... be wantin' to take a spin in one av me ingines, is it?" he asked then. And, after a moment: "An' do you think you'll be able to hang on, whin she gets ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans

... a just and pious war; and complains that the prosperity of his own empire is disturbed by the audacious enterprises of the Norman Robert. The lists of his presents expresses the manners of the age—a radiated crown of gold, a cross set with pearls to hang on the breast, a case of relics, with the names and titles of the saints, a vase of crystal, a vase of sardonyx, some balm, most probably of Mecca, and one hundred pieces of purple. To these he added a more solid present, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon

... is!—their gentle sorrow that they could no longer make nice bargains for books! and his wearing new, neat, black clothes, alas! instead of the overworn suit that was made to hang on a few weeks longer, that he might buy the old folio of Beaumont and Fletcher! Do you remember ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various

... of any now in bloom but the golden rods and the latest of the ever-listings. Rosette shall go out, and try to get some of them for you. The French children make little mats and garlands of them to ornament their houses, and to hang on the little crosses above the graves of their friends, because they do not fade ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill

... very discouraged at times, and sometimes the spells of discouragement hang on for a long while. I wonder if I am sanctified. From unaccountable sources, bad feelings of every description depress my soul, and along with these bad feelings come doubts that cast gloom over me. I have prayed and prayed that these feelings of ...
— Adventures in the Land of Canaan • Robert Lee Berry

... returning to the evening sermon, which began at six, I remained alone aboard of the vessel. The rain ceased in little more than an hour after, and in somewhat more than two hours I got up on deck to see whether the congregation was not dispersing, and if it was not yet time to hang on the kettle for our evening tea. The unexpected apparition of some one aboard the Free Church yacht startled two ragged boys who were manoeuvring a little boat a stone-cast away, under the rocky shores of Eilean Chaisteil, ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... ladies were painted in velvet and silk, with tiny pearl embroidered caps on their braided tresses. Their husbands were all clad in steel, or in costly cloaks lined with squirrel skins and stiff blue ruffs; their swords hung loosely by their sides. Where would Johanna's portrait one day hang on these walls? What would her noble husband look like? These were her thoughts, and she even spoke them aloud; I heard her as I swept through the long corridor into the gallery, where I veered ...
— Stories from Hans Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... level a head," Grenfell said. "It's as fatal in art as it is in some professions. You have to concentrate, hang on to the one thing, and give yourself to it. Miss Kinnaird couldn't do that. She must stop and count the cost. To make anything of this life one now and then must shut one's eyes to that. There generally has to be ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss

... that the first idiot who comes along can hang on to the footboard of my car without my knowing it? You must be ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc

... that distance, trusting that the darkness would continue free from moonlight. He took one swift look backward and saw the Sioux, a dozen or more, following steadily after. He knew that they would hang on as long as any chance of capturing him remained, and he resolved to make use of the next swell that he crossed. He would swerve when he passed the crest, and while it was yet between him and his pursuers, perhaps he could find some friendly covert that would hide him. Meanwhile ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler

... hailed me in some such language: 'What aileth thee?' why is thy countenance sad? am I not better to thee than ten friends? Then has he turned my heart to him, made me feel myself close to him; he has suffered me to lean on his bosom, hang on his arm, and lisp out, Abba. At such blest moments I have thought the whole earth but one point, and from that to heaven but one step, and the time between but as one moment; and my company here sufficient to satisfy me by the way. At such blest moments I felt perfect, full, entire satisfaction ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham

... "Can you hang on all right at a trot if I lead yore hoss?" he queried, sharply, his fingers busy with the ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White

... the travellers came upon a wounded old buffalo which had evidently escaped from the Indians (for a couple of arrows were sticking in its side), only to fall a prey to his deadly enemies, the white wolves. These savage brutes hang on the skirts of the herds of buffaloes to attack and devour any one that may chance, from old age, or from being wounded, to linger behind the rest. The buffalo is tough and fierce, however, and fights so desperately that although surrounded by fifty or a hundred ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne

... Traitors, Guys, and Judasses, and Vipers and what not, For Pasley and his divers ain't so blowing-up a lot. And then such awful swearing!—for there's one of them that cusses Enough to shock the cads that hang on opposition 'busses; For he cusses every member that's agin him at the poll, As I wouldn't cuss a donkey, tho' it hasn't got a soul; And he cusses all their families, Jack, Harry, Bob or Jim, To the babby in the cradle, if they don't agree with him. Whereby, altho' as yet they have not took ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... with the children, as they grew old enough to cultivate his friendship, and would run up and down the little paddock with them like a dog; but though he relaxed so far, and allowed them such small freedoms as caresses, or even to look at his shoes or hang on by his tail, he never permitted any one among them to mount his back or drive him; thus showing that even their familiarity must have its limits, and that there were points between them far ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... own comfort. And there was a shadow on the girl's life; a burden of shame and regret for the silly, frivolous mother, who spent so little time at home, but who flitted from place to place on the Continent, not always in the best of company but managing generally to hang on to some old dowager either English, French, or German, and so cover herself with an appearance of respectability. Sometimes Lord Hardy was with her, and sometimes he was not, for as he grew older and knew her better, he began ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes

... said St. Clair. "We've got this fort, but we know it will take a big force to keep it. I don't like the way these mill hands and mechanics fight. They hang on too long. After we drove them out of the fort they ought to have retreated up the valley and left us in peace. If they act this way when they're raw, what'll they do when ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler

... clos'd in my true love's hand? Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end:— O churl! drink all, and left no friendly drop To help me after?—I will kiss thy lips; Haply some poison yet doth hang on them, To make me die ...
— Romeo and Juliet • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... drained his tumbler of hot whisky, and felt better for it. With the second he became more communicative. He asked himself why, after all, he should not hang on to the clue he had obtained from Polly, and why Greenacre should ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing

... overhead must be got in somehow," though topmast and yard and sail may go any minute,—when the quailing mate or frightened captain dares not order men to all but certain death, and still less dares to lead,—then it is, when the lives of all hang on the heroism of one, that the good blood will ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various

... be some dangle, I guess; but if you don't waste too much time on the way up, I may be able to hang on," said he. ...
— The Scarecrow of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... asserted—the influence of cultivation so industriously extended, and the progress of salvation and civilization so zealously persecuted; that, what with their attendant wars, persecutions, oppressions, diseases, and other partial evils that often hang on the skirts of great benefits—the savage aborigines have, somehow or other, been utterly annihilated—and this all at once brings me to a fourth right, which is worth all the others put together. For the original claimants to the soil being all dead and buried, and no one ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... then, I'm to hang on, I suppose, and take my medicine. If that's all the advice you've got to give me, I might as well have stayed at home. But I tell you this, Jed Winslow: If I'd realized—if I'd thought about the Leander ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln

... effects of the sowars are carried across on their heads, the rushing waters threatening to sweep them off their feet at every step; but nothing is allowed to get wet. When they are carrying across the last bundle, the khan, solicitous for my safety, wants me to hang on to a short rope tied around the waist of the strongest of the nomads. Naturally disdaining any such arrangement as this, however, I declare my intention of crossing without assistance, and wade in forthwith. Ere I have progressed thirty yards, the current fairly sweeps me ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... too. You've a cleverer way with animals than I have. Why! that horse I was driving the other day would have gone better alone. I didn't drive it. I just fussed it. I interfered. If I ride for ever, I shall never have decent hands, I shall always hang on my horse's mouth at a gallop, I shall never be sure at a jump. But at any rate I shall get hard. ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells

... branches; or sometimes the leaves shrivel and die about the edges or in large irregular discolored spots, but without the distinct pustular marks of the parasitic fungi. There is a general tendency for the foliage on plants affected with such diseases to shrivel and to hang on the stem for a time. One of the best illustrations of this type of disease is the pear-blight. Sometimes the plant gives rise to abnormal growths, as in the "willow shoots" of peaches affected with ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey

... madam? Think! Great issues hang on a right settlement of this fact. Can you declare that she did not have this candy in one ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green

... sill, and get safely back into the room. But before attempting this scootcher, recognizing its dangerous character, with commendable caution I warned David that in case I should happen to slip I would grip the rain-trough when I was going over the eaves and hang on, and that he must then run fast downstairs and tell father to get a ladder for me, and tell him to be quick because I would soon be tired hanging dangling in the wind by my hands. After my return from this capital scootcher, David, not to be outdone, crawled up to the top of the ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir

... coming—don't say a word, hang on to his legs, you know—En jam tempus erat—Munger, you cad, why don't you come? Italiam fato profugus. Hah! got you, my man. Shove him in, quick! Strike a light, do you hear? here they come. What are you doing, Clip?—turn him face up. That's for blackguarding me before the whole house! ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed

... an idea in the minds of others) that he had so far been left out, not only from the whirl of life—he had deliberately withdrawn from that—but from the weft of life itself. The great loom had not swept him in. It had not appeared to need him. Some of us seem to hang on the fringe of life, of thought, of love, of everything. We are not for good or ill interwoven into the stuff, ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley

... door. Every day he watered and tended it, so that it grew wonderfully, and at last bore one large fruit as big as a pear, purple and white and glossy,—such a handsome fruit, that the good couple thought it a pity to pick it, and let it hang on the plant day after day, until one fine morning when there was absolutely nothing to eat in the house. Then the Brahman said to his wife, 'We must eat the egg-fruit; go and cut it, ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel

... that it was impossible to keep from sliding even when one lay prone on the deck. The men on lookout had all they could do to hang on. One moment the end of the bridge would rise high in air and the next almost bury ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday

... The order to a boat's crew to renew rowing, or to increase their exertions if they were already rowing. To hang on the oars. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth

... Dyak. I had the wreaths to make. The church had been decked with moss fern the day before, but the flowers must be added in the morning, or they would be faded. So Julia and I made a crown of French marigolds to hang on the cross over the altar, two large wreaths for either side, and one at the west end made entirely of the golden allamanda, in the buds of which you used to imprison fire-flies when you lived here. The font ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall

... of you," Mrs. Sharp repeated. "I couldn't go back and live in England again. If we lose our crop, well, we must hang on some way till next year. We shan't starve, exactly. A person's got to take the rough with the smooth; and take it by and ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett

... river, sir," replied Helling. "On benches along the Embankment, once or twice in the parks. But that's all over now," he said earnestly. "I'm all right. I've got my ship. I couldn't part with that before, because it was the only thing I had to hang on to the world with. ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason

... for me to determine that my shadow was one of the "Japanese"; for it was a most intangible and elusive shadow. Whatever else I might think of these worthies, I could not deny that their ability to hang on a man's trail, and at the same time keep themselves well-nigh invisible, amounted positively to genius. With all my doubling back and lurking in doorways around corners, the fellow never came up to where I could get a good ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk

... force! Were there no boughs to hang on, Rivers to drown in? Serve by force? No force Could make ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... enslave them."[416] The regulation thus repealed, although it was a part of the rules of Methodism, was just another indication of the sentiment in Kentucky at that time to resent more and more the encroachments of the North on the slave system of the South and to hang on to the institution with a grim determination. But they were not willing to go to unwarrantable lengths, for at the Kentucky Conference held in Germantown in March, 1860, a proposition submitted by the sister conferences ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various

... us much, my dear signor, and much that you have said is deeply interesting. In your mind it may be that these various facts are related, and bring you to some sort of conclusion bearing on the Grey Room; but for us it is not so. These statements leave us where they find us; they hang on nothing, not even upon one another in our ears. I speak plainly, since this is a matter for plain speaking. It is natural that you should not feel as we feel; but I need not remind you that what ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts

... Marion and I seem to take kindly to bad weather. I believe if she could wear a sou'-wester she would hang on to the rigging. It's her combative instinct. But I do hope there is no ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman

... scarcely three kilometers; that would be only a pleasant walk in this delightful weather. And she agreed gaily, not sulky now, but pressing close to him, happy to hang on his arm. It was five o'clock. The setting sun spread over the fields a great sheet of gold. But as soon as they left Plassans they were obliged to cross the corner of the vast, arid plain, which extended to the right of the Viorne. The new canal, whose irrigating ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola

... to defend his slave property. In both cases the fetters of the serfs and slaves were broken by their own masters,—not intentionally, of course, but really and effectually. How blind men are in their injustices! They are made to hang on the gallows which they have erected for others. To gratify his passion of punishing the infidels, whom he so intensely hated, the baron or prince was obliged to grant great concessions to the towns and villages which he ruled with an iron hand, in order to raise money for his equipment and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord

... truth as it is in Jesus. Felt there was much mingling of experience. At times the congregation was lightened up from their dull flatness, and then they sunk again into lethargy. O Lord, make me hang on Thee to open their hearts, Thou opener of Lydia's heart. I fear Thou wilt not bless my preaching, until I am brought thus to hang on Thee. Oh keep not back a blessing for my sin! Afternoon—On the Highway of the Redeemed, with more ease and comfort. Felt the truth sometimes boiling ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar

... into the haze of the aisle and the transepts, and out of it all streams the sound and the singing, it pours up past you like a river, a river that rushes upward to some great sea, some unknown sea. The whole place is music and singing.... I hang on to the railings, Stephen, and weep—I have to ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells

... hook for a noun or pronoun to hang on. It usually precedes the noun or pronoun which hangs, or depends upon it, as indicated by its name which is derived from the Latin ...
— Word Study and English Grammar - A Primer of Information about Words, Their Relations and Their Uses • Frederick W. Hamilton

... time it must be acknowledged that some of these reformers proceeded with more zeal than knowledge, while others did whatever in them lay to make the whole movement absurd—even as there ever hang on the skirts of a noble movement, be it in literature or politics or higher things yet, those who contribute their little all to bring ridicule and contempt upon it. Thus in the reaction against foreign interlopers which ensued, and in the zeal to purify the language from them, some went to such extravagant ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench

... canoe and we can take care of the rod. If you'll take the rod now, I'll hang on to his jaw and take out the hook, which I can see in the corner of his mouth. Then, if you will look out for the rod and balance the canoe, I'll slide that tarpon ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock

... declined to be dictated to, in his household matters, by his adherents. This gave the English Jacobites an excuse for turning their coats, of which they availed themselves. Sir Walter Scott makes the romance of "Redgauntlet" hang on the incident. About this time jottings of Charles prove that he fancied himself a Republican. He hated Louis XV., and declined on one occasion to act as a bug-bear (epouvantail), at the request of France. He had already struck a medal in honor of the British Navy and contempt of the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various

... but there are a good many clean, well- behaved, truthful, decently-featured little boys and girls who will, in course of time, become the bulwarks of the Republic, who are of no use as models. The public is not interested in, and will neither purchase nor hang on its walls anything but a winsome child, a beautiful child, a pathetic child, or a picturesquely ragged and dirty child. (The latter type is preferably a foreigner, as dirty American children are for some reason or other ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... 'Give me a good-night kiss.' I have learned, but I did not know in time, The fruits that hang on the tree of bliss Are not for ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray

... to be a bit sloppy when this sou'wester gets its gait on," he suggested to the skipper. "We'll have something to hang on to." ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... "Hang on to that!" said Francis, handing me over a leather case. I recognized it at a glance. It was Clubfoot's dispatch-box. Francis was thorough ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams

... on a broad strip of leather, made to fit on the back part of a saddle, so arranged that a bag will hang on each side of the horse, the two thus balancing ...
— Scenes in the Hawaiian Islands and California • Mary Evarts Anderson

... view of the break in the reef. A little bit of the white strand was visible, but he was not looking that way—he was looking towards the reef at a tiny, dark spot, not noticeable unless searched for by the eye. Always when he came on these expeditions, just here, he would hang on his oars and gaze over there, where the gulls were flying and ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... through the Lands and Public Works departments year after year have had disagreeable effects on public life. In every Parliament certain members are to be pointed out—usually from half-settled districts—who hang on to the Ministry's skirts for what they can get for their electorates. The jesting lines at the head of this chapter advert to these. But they must not be taken too seriously. It would be better if the purposes for which ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves

... condition a single mis-step would be fatal. Would she make that mis-step? He shook off a horrible temptation that seemed to be sealing his lips, and paralyzing his limbs, and almost screamed to her, "Drop on your face, hang on to ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... a rolling cloud of smoke Would hang on the sea-limits, faint and far, But through the night the beacon-flame upbroke From some rich island-town begirt with war; And all these things could neither make nor mar The joy of lovers wandering, but they Sped happily, and heedless ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang

... friend of Poritol, for the difference in the station of the two South Americans was marked. Poritol was a cheap character—useful, no doubt, in certain kinds of work, but vulgar and unconvincing. He might well be one of those promoters who hang on at the edge of great projects, hoping to pick up a commission here and there. His strongest point was his obvious effort to triumph over his own insignificance, for this effort, by its comic but desperate earnestness, could not but command a certain ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin

... west to Falmouth," said Doe, inflamed by my recent appreciation of his poem. "It'll be there in two hours. Wouldn't I like to hang on to one of its beams and go ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond

... you're that, any way; but you must always keep close to me. It doesn't do for young people to talk much together in society; it makes scandal about a girl. If you dance, you must always hurry back to me. Dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Erwin, "I remember how, when I was a girl, I used to hang on to the young men's arms, and promenade with them after a dance, and go out to supper with them, and flirt on the stairs,—such times! But that wouldn't do here, Lydia. It would ruin a girl's reputation; she could hardly walk arm in ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells

... drawn up by the augmented force of evaporation acting vigorously over land and sea: the sky, instead of its brilliant blue, assumes the sullen tint of lead, and not a breath disturbs the motionless rest of the clouds that hang on the lower range of hills. At length, generally about the middle of the month, but frequently earlier, the sultry suspense is broken by the arrival of the wished-for change. The sun has by this time nearly attained his greatest northern declination, and ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... farther away from me that gown seemed to recede, the more I longed for it; and when Father told me not to nag or be a little idiot, I determined that somehow or other, by hook or crook, the frock should hang on my wall behind the chintz curtain which ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... women and friendship; how he longed to possess a tender affection which would be a secret between two alone. He complained of her want of confidence in him, and of his work in his loneliness. She tried to comfort him, and being artistic, sent him a sepia drawing. He sought a second one to hang on the other side of his fireplace, and thus replaced two lithographs he did not like. As a token of his friendship he sent her a manuscript of one of his ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd

... Charleston is born into the blood of all her sons, whether she recognizes them or not. It is better to be a door-keeper in Charleston than to dwell in the most gorgeous tents of outside barbarians. So he who was born to the Queen City would hang on to the remotest hem of her trailing robe at the imminent risk of having his brains dashed out on the cobble-stones as she swept along her royal way, rather than sit comfortably upon velvet-cushioned thrones in a place unknown to her regal presence. Simms came ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett

... good as usual. He suspected Nelly of having changed his Daily Mail for the Daily Express or something. He swallowed the piece of paper, and was struck by the thought that a little climbing exercise might be what his soul demanded. (You hang on by your beak and claws and work your way up to the roof. It sounds tame, but it's something to do.) He tried it. And, as he gripped the door of the cage, it swung open. Bill the parrot now perceived that ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse

... creature!" cried Dolly, and it was almost crying; "you shall see what comes of your cold-bloodedness! I shall pace to and fro in the direct line of fire, and hang on my back the king's proclamation, inside out, and written on it in large letters—'By order of my sister I do this.' Then what will be said of you, if they only kill me? My feelings might be very sad, but I ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... you really care about her. I think you are aware that you have got a love-affair on hand, and that you hang on to it rather persistently, having in some way come to a resolution that you would be persistent. But there isn't much heart in it. I daresay ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... "'Let him hang on a little, my dear,' says the mother; 'may be if you see a commander or a post-captain swimming by, you may cast him off, and hook one of ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston

... old, and it is hardly worth while to die just to keep young. It is claimed that people with certain incomes live longer than those who have to earn their bread. But the income people have a stupid kind of life, and though they may hang on a good many years, they can hardly be said to do much real living. The best you can say is, not that they lived so many years, but that it took them so many years to die. Some people imagine that regular habits prolong life, but that depends ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll

... legal!" Pell fired back. "And what do I care—what does anybody care—so long as it's legal! Ha! the courts would be with me! Moreover, it's the way you get the clothes you wear and the food you eat, and all those jewels that you hang on yourself when you undress and ...
— The Bad Man • Charles Hanson Towne

... send me away. Well, you've managed to and in the only way you could—by your silence. You haven't opened your mouth for a fortnight. You're better now, too, and Mrs. Bolitho will look after you. I was determined to hang on to you, but I find I can't. I'm going back to London to ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... ...! Now I have found you.... If you say another word I'll serve you as you served the Haddock. I'll hang on to your arm right along the Leas. I'll hang round your neck and scream if you try to run away. This is poetic justice, darling. Now you know how our Haddock felt. No—I won't leave go of your sleeve. Where shall we go, dearest darling Dammy. Dare you drive up and ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren

... to th' Center first. Why would your Lordship marry, and confine that pleasure You ever have had freely cast upon you? Take heed my Lord, this marrying is a mad matter, Lighter a pair of shackles will hang on you, And quieter a quartane feaver find you. If you wed me I must enjoy you only, Your eyes must be called home, your thoughts in cages, To sing to no ears then but mine; your heart bound, The custom, that your youth was ever nurst in, Must be forgot, I shall forget ...
— Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (1 of 10) - The Custom of the Country • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... very bright—very clear of mind. And listen, Will—the mind of a woman is better for small things than that of a man. They pick up trifles and hang on to them. I'd as soon trust that girl for a guide out yonder as any horse-stealing warrior in a hurry to get into a country and in a hurry to get out of it again. Raiding parties cling to the river-courses, which they know; but she and her people must have been far to the west of ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough

... wildest kind. But we don't deal in oil, we sell stock. Every issue we've put out has gone above par at some time or other, and that's playing the game square with our customers, ain't it? We see that they have a chance to get out with a profit; if they hang on it's their own fault. That's how ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach

... or with the love of divine charity giving money to the woman, while the little child gives him its hand; whether touching his thumb he seems to explain some religious question, while some women seated there hang on his words, exchange their impressions, or ecstatically clasp their hands in sign of admiration or faith; whether he speak before the Great Council, or is conducted at last torture, supporting it with ...
— Fra Angelico • J. B. Supino

... to a farthing," said Abel, "but he is as honest as the day. Why he has the reputation of a saint. Harriet says she wishes he wore a long-tailed coat instead of a short jacket, so that she could hang on and get to ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman

... something deeper than mere desire of achievement stirred him, he would probably never attain. He needed a goal that should make everything else in the world pale before it, and something that seemed almost as life and death to hang on his success. But how get it for him? If he loved, and was bidden wait until he had prospered, the end was all too sure and the ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page

... look me up. Bass are the most uncertain of fish, and no one can predict when they will elect to bite, or where. Sometimes they are in the still water, deep or shallow according to their caprice; sometimes they hang on the edges of the rapids; sometimes they are in the dark, smooth eddies below the great boulders; sometimes in the clear depths around the rocks near shore. Each day afresh,—indeed, each morning and each afternoon,—the fisherman must try, and try, and try, until he discovers what ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge

... hang on to your arm as you went down the street," Eleanor said. "Mrs. Houghton ought to tell her that nice ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland

... we tried to introduce an orange squeezer designed to hang on the wall and operate somewhat on the principle of a pencil sharpener. We showed it to our houseman who regarded it glumly. "I'll try to use it if you insist," he finally said, "but I can work faster with that glass one from the ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley

... cold-hearted tyrant, and his wife is a snob. If she weren't, she wouldn't hang on to her duchess-hood after marrying again. It would be good enough for me to call myself Lady Northmorland, and I hope I ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... sank to one of unnatural calm; but his frame shook and his face was purple with the pressure he put upon himself. "What is changed? Who has changed it?" he continued; to see his chance of life hang on the will of this imbecile was almost more than he could bear. "Speak out! Let me know what ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman

... of something and hang on," the red-faced man said to me. All his bluster had gone, and he seemed to have caught the contagion of preternatural calm. "And listen to the women scream," he said grimly—almost bitterly, I thought, as though he had ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London

... at kicking out time, you can hang on, sometimes, to a man with some cash and get asked to kip with him for the night. You can get a bed for a shilling a night in many places. It isn't a feather-bed. If there is no Good Samaritan about you go and lie down in the ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles

... its breath and allow a constant spray of supports to dash across the open and reinforce it. Now, the centre, where the track ran bare and flat across the field, plied frantic shovels to heap up some sort of cover that would allow them also to hang on in conformation of the whole line and gather breath and reinforcements for ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable

... fixed, in their way, as the everlasting hills. No change would ever come there except the inevitable ones wrought by time and decay. That silver-mounted album would occupy that corner of that table, those pictures would hang on the walls, those chairs be found in their same places every morn and noon and night while the household hung together. The brass andirons were monuments to order and stability. Here and there were ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry

... looked embarrassed; but she quickly recovered herself. "I don't mean to wind it up like a clock," she said, "but to wind it up like an old-fashioned clothes-line which isn't wanted again until you have some more things to hang on it." ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton

... to do was to hang on tight, and the joust would be in the bag, he reassured himself. Sir Galahad's spear would break like a matchstick, while his own superior spear would penetrate Sir Galahad's shield as though the shield was made of tissue paper, as in a sense it really was when you compared the ...
— A Knyght Ther Was • Robert F. Young

... impulsively to those of the opposite sex who happened to interest her. She had a natural contempt for people who gloried in what they need only have endured. She herself meant eventually to marry, because one couldn't forever hang on to rich people; but she was going to wait till she found some one who combined the maximum of wealth with at least a ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton

... been almost out of my mind I'd never have told that it was Jud Clark. That'll hang on me ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... slow degrees you will get there. Your skin will wither. Your eyes, which smile even in repose, will always be watering. Your breasts will shrink and hang on your skeleton like loose rags. Your lower jaw will sag from the tiredness of living. You will be in a constant shiver of cold, and your appearance will be cadaverous. Your voice will be cracked, and people who now find it ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse

... boarding-school, where you must furnish your own spoon and knife, fork, and napkin. But at length, I was so happy as to barter with a steerage passenger a silk handkerchief of mine for a half-gallon iron pot, with hooks to it, to hang on a grate; and this pot I used to present at the cook-house for my allowance of coffee and tea. It gave me a good deal of trouble, though, to keep it clean, being much disposed to rust; and the hooks sometimes scratched my face when I was drinking; and it was ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... to bid him back again. 420 But when within spear's cast, or less they came, Knowing them enemies he turn'd to flight Incontinent, whom they as swift pursued. As two fleet hounds sharp fang'd, train'd to the chase, Hang on the rear of flying hind or hare, 425 And drive her, never swerving from the track, Through copses close; she screaming scuds before; So Diomede and dread Ulysses him Chased constant, intercepting his return. And now, fast-fleeting to the ships, he soon 430 Had reach'd ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... with signalling apparatus enabled communication to be obtained with battalion H.Q. Lt. Wilson outlined the situation and was told in return that the L.F's. had not yet reached Boar Copse, having met with powerful resistance. He was further ordered to hang on to his position and wait until the L.F's. had drawn up in line. Meanwhile a company of the 5th was sent up to strengthen the flank. Continuous touch by means of patrols were kept with the enemy, and his movements were carefully ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson

... which should be washed in clean water, first on the right side, then on the wrong, special care being bestowed upon the feet. Rinse in clear water, with a final rinsing in hot water to soften the fiber, and hang on the line wrong side out, toes up. Woolen stockings are washed in ...
— The Complete Home • Various

... our amateur sailor found a post office at every port. He wrote reams. He had the journalist's trick of instantaneous composition. Like the Ouidaesque hero, who could ride a Derby Winner with one hand, and stroke a University Crew to victory with the other, Jaffery could with one hand hang on to a rope over a yawning abyss, while with the other he could scribble a graphic account of the situation on a knee-supported writing-pad. In ordinary circumstances—that is to say in what, to Jaffery, were ordinary circumstances—he ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke

... Makoos, and his teeth sank into the flesh like two rows of ivory needles. Makoos gave a tug, but Neewa held on, and bit deeper. Then Makoos drew up his leg and sent it out like a catapault, and in spite of his determination to hang on Neewa found himself sailing wildly through the air. He landed against a rock twenty feet from the fighters with a force that knocked the wind out of him, and for a matter of eight or ten seconds after that he wobbled dizzily ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood

... expert; but his arms were broken, or he was paralysed, and could do no more than hang on to the man, with his head swung back, so that he could see nothing but the heaving sky. After dragging at the assailant, he fell on the bank with him, and then there was another great crash, and then a splash, ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... slap-up price—sent to where there's no muttering about it. That's one way we does it; and then, there's another. But, all in all, there's a right smart lot of other ways that will work their way into a talented mind. And when a feller gets the hang on it, and knows lawyer gumption, he can do it up smooth. You must strap 'em down, chain 'em, look vengeance at 'em; and now and then, when the varmin will squeal, spite of all the thrashin' ye can give 'em, box 'em up like rats, ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... degrees in temperature during shipment spells either profit or disaster! Ask a shipowner on the Great Lakes or the captain of a trading schooner in the Gulf! These men will tell you that their lives and their fortunes hang on their careful understanding of the weather. But if you ask some one who merely wants to know whether or not to wear new clothes or whether it will be safe to have a picnic on a certain afternoon—then, indeed, ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler

... perhaps, the most contemptible that the world has ever seen. If one of these worthies is rich enough, his dream has been to keep a mistress in splendour; if this has been above his means, he has attempted to hang on to some wealthy vaurien. The number of persons without available means who somehow managed to live on the fat of the land without ever doing a single day's honest work had become enormous. Most of them have, on some pretext or other, sneaked out of Paris. ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere

... itself to inculcate a friendly and forbearing spirit towards them and to protect them from fraud and injustice.* The current opinion of the Indian character, however, is too apt to be formed from the miserable hordes which infest the frontiers and hang on the skirts of the settlements. These are too commonly composed of degenerate beings, corrupted and enfeebled by the vices of society, without being benefited by its civilization. That proud independence which formed the main pillar of savage virtue has ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving

... you've got a family," said I, "and you mustn't forget that we've got a long, cold, hard winter ahead of us. Hang on to your wheat. Don't let Tom, Dick and Harry come along and chisel you out of your last kernel, just ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... Madrid. The walls are covered with faded Cordova leather hangings figured in gold and dull colours, and a magnificent rococo screen separates the sacristy from the middle aisle. Venetian lustres are suspended from the ceiling, pictures of martyrs, Venetian glasses in carved oval frames hang on the wall, richly ornamented wooden benches and a library of missals and gospels in sparkling silver clasps, and shining marble tables and glistening braziers form part of the scene in which the marriage contract is being signed. The costumes are those of the time ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker

... beneath the mountain steep. Loud-voiced as bulls they forth will burst And seek the flood, oppressed by thirst; Then rest a while, their wants supplied, Their well-fed bands on Pampa's side. Thou roving there at eve shalt see Rich clusters hang on shrub and tree, And Pampa flushed with roseate glow, And at the view forget thy woe. There shalt thou mark with strange delight Each loveliest flower that blooms by night, While lily buds that shrink from day Their tender loveliness ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... said, handing over the weapon to Concho. "Take it; my horse is outside; take that, ride like h—l and hang on to the claim until ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte

... twilight, he stole secretly to the church, and placed a new wig upon the Madonna, and withdrew the old one. [Footnote: Authentic addition to the "History of Frederick the Second."] You see, messieurs, that not only happiness but piety may hang on a hair, and those holy saints to whom the faithful pray were, without doubt, adroit ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach

... preliminaries in the way of Math, and Latin and Logic that I have to take before I can have my sheepskin, and there's also some history and some English literature which the family demand that I take. So I don't know just how long I may hang on here." ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde

... about three, paying no heed to the others, was crowing as it splashed through a puddle with its little bare feet. Two women, one young and one elderly, the man's mother and his wife, no doubt, seemed to hang on his lips as he recounted perhaps ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... the old woman, affecting increase of terror, "he sha'n't follow you. I will hang on to his clothes and ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... Let me tell you what comes of meddling with things that can take care of themselves.—A friend of mine had a watch given him, when he was a boy,—a "bull's eye," with a loose silver case that came off like an oyster-shell from its contents; you know them,—the cases that you hang on your thumb, while the core or the real watch lies in your hand as naked as a peeled apple. Well, he began with taking off the case, and so on from one liberty to another, until he got it fairly open, and there were the ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various

... a lofty throne for his grace the bishop, that he may glut his vengeance to the full. Let the rest pass in silence. The most reliable authorities tell us that the Anabaptists remained calm and firm to the last. 'Art thou a king?' 'Art thou a bishop?' The iron cages still hang on the church tower at Muenster; placed as a warning, they have become a show; perhaps some day they will be treasured as weird mentors of the truth which the world has yet to learn from the story of the Kingdom of God ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas

... wished to walk; his long legs were cramped: but Lady Augusta would not hear of it, and pulled him into the carriage, Gerald, Percy, and Frank were fighting for places on the box beside the driver, Tod intending to hang on behind, as he had done in coming, when the deep-toned college bell struck out a quarter to three, and the sound came distinctly to their ears, borne from the distance. It put a stop to the competition, so far as Gerald was concerned. He and ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood

... duly moistened air, with good sidewalks to go about on in all weather, and four months of the cream of summer and the fresh milk of Jersey cows, make the little sham organizations—the worm-eaten wind-falls, for that 's what they look like—hang on to the boughs of life like "froze-n-thaws"; regular struldbrugs they come to be, a good ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... issue and meaning of the world hang on threads as slight. If this one is slight. To the mother it is not slight, nor to the God who put into her eyes, as she looked at me, all the doubt and question of ...
— The Faith Healer - A Play in Three Acts • William Vaughn Moody

... have anything to do with the matter!..." And other fooleries to match, and tears and tears of joy; ten times a day to kneel down, one knee bent in front of the other, the other leg drawn back, the arms extended towards the goddess, to seek one's desire in her eyes, to hang on her lips, to wait for her command, and then start off like a flash of lightning. Where is the man who would subject himself to play such a part, if it is not the wretch, who finds there two or three times a week ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley

... scoundrel!" cried Milady, seeing the interest which the young officer, whose soul seemed to hang on her lips, took in this strange recital. "Oh, yes, scoundrel! He believed, having triumphed over me in my sleep, that all was completed. He came, hoping that I would accept my shame, as my shame was consummated; he came to offer his fortune ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... the paddles and the pretty triangular sails are fetched and fastened on the canoes; then the boats are pushed off and the whole crowd jumps in. The babies sit in their mothers' laps or hang on their backs, perilously close to the water, into which they stare with big, dark eyes. By twos and threes the canoes push off, driven by vigorous paddling along the shore, against the current. Sometimes a young man wades after a canoe and joins some fair friends, sitting in front ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser

... his head. "Well, pardner, you'll be Pete Annersley now. Watch out that hoss don't jerk you out o' your jacket. This here hill is a enterprisin' hill and leads right up to my place. Hang on! As I was sayin', we're pardners, you and me. We're goin' up to my place on the Blue and tend to the critters and git washed up and have supper, and mebby after supper we'll mosey around so you kin git acquainted with the ranch. Where'd you say ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... replied Charles; "women hang on hands now-a-days. At all events, by God's blessing, I am resolved that, if they are beauties, they shall never be forced by poverty to accept unworthy matches; if they are plain, they shall have enough to ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... I should say I did. I know too that he made me hate saints. But you love them and thought you had one, instead of which you got a devil. Your luck is far better than mine. If you take my advice, you will hang on to him like grim death. It is not too late. To-morrow he will be here, thundering at ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus

... how it feels to be a free man. Just you give all that up. Seek to be the Lord's. His grace is all-sufficient. His strength will be made perfect in your weakness. If you're His, He'll keep you, and no mistake. Give all the rest up, and hang on to the Lord in simple faith. You can never do this thing of yourself; but the Lord'll give you the help of His grace, if you ask Him. I know, because ...
— Stephen Grattan's Faith - A Canadian Story • Margaret M. Robertson

... slaunchways on the wide bunk. He didn't weigh more'n sixty pounds, but they was the solidest sixty ever wrapped up in a dog hide. He wouldn't mind no one but Bill, an' it was all I could do to get room enough on the perch to hang on. Then Bill would open up his vau-dee-ville show, an' when he'd simmer down, the pup would begin to chase jackrabbits, which was the most devilish-lookin' sight I ever see. He'd lay there with his eyelids rolled up, an' his eyes turned inside out, givin' short ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason

... overtaken by a furious equinoctial gale; it comes howling suddenly from the west, obscuring the recently vacated Koflan Koo Mountains behind an inky veil, filling the air with clouds of dust, and for some minutes rendering it necessary to lie down and fairly hang on to the ground to prevent being blown about. First it begins to rain, then to hail; heaven's artillery echoes and reverberates in the Koflan Koo Mountains, and rolls above the plain, seeming to shake the hailstones down like fruit ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... yet but haul off, watch an' then follow. The chaparral runs along for a mile or two an' we can hide in the north end of it until they march south an' are out of sight. Then we'll hang on." ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler

... perfectly ripe and gathered the first week of the season; they lose their jelly property if they hang on the bushes too long, and become too juicy—the juice will not be apt to congeal. Strip them from the stalks, put them into a stone jar, and set in a vessel of hot water over the fire; keep the water around it boiling until the currants are all broken, stirring ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette

... passion for the grave as the portal through which it may recover some heavenly countenance, mother or sister, that has vanished. Through solitude this passion may be exalted into a frenzy like a nympholepsy. At first, when in childhood we find ourselves torn away from the lips that we could hang on for ever, we throw out our arms in vain struggles to snatch at them, and pull them back again. But when we have felt for a time how hopeless is that effort, and that they cannot come to us, we desist from that struggle, and next we whisper to our hearts, ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... moment I can come I will, but my hopes of coming yet a while yet hang on a ticklish thread. The coach I come by is immaterial as I shall so easily by your direction find ye out. My mother is grown so entirely helpless (not having any use of her limbs) that Mary is necessarily confined from ever sleeping out, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... The whole place, in that season more particularly, is full of a soft and soothing melancholy, reminding me, I scarcely know why, of some of the descriptions of natural scenery in the novels of Charlotte Smith, which I read when a girl, and which, perhaps, for that reason hang on my memory. ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford



Words linked to "Hang on" :   telephone, obstinate, phone, hold the line, subjoin, attach, plug, follow, expect, continue, ring, stick with, look, bear on, ask for it, ask for trouble, persist, uphold, preserve, carry on, tack on, tack, plug away, telephony, stick to, persevere, await, call up, wait, hang in, call



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