hang up

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hang up (third-person singular simple present hangs up, present participle hanging up, simple past and past participle hung up)

1. (transitive) To put up to hang.

   I hung up my wash on the line.

2. (intransitive, idiomatic) To terminate a telephone call, originally by hanging the receiver on its hook or cradle thereby automatically disconnecting the line.

   When my mother started telling me to be careful over the phone, I threatened to hang up on her.

   • 1974, Harry Chapin and Sandra Chapin (lyrics and music), “Cat's in the Cradle”, in Verities & Balderdash, performed by Harry Chapin:

     And as I hung up the phone, it occurred to me
     He'd grown up just like me
     My boy was just like me.

3. (intransitive, figurative) To stop talking.
4. To keep delayed, suspended, held up, or stuck.
5. To rob or mug (someone).
6. To arrest (someone); to send (someone) to prison.
7. To quit (something); to give up or stop doing (something); to abandon (something).

   He hung up the flute after college.

   I think it's time to hang it up.

8. To distress, disadvantage or harm (someone).

• (terminate a phone call): release (a call from), put the phone down (on); ring off

• hung up
• ring off

• uphang