Adjacent Words

hangdog definitions

	Tweet

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: showing a sense of guilt; "a guilty look"; "the hangdog and shamefaced air of the retreating enemy"- Eric Linklater [syn: guilty, hangdog, shamefaced, shamed]
2: frightened into submission or compliance

Merriam Webster's

I. adjective Date: 1677 1. sad, dejected 2. sheepish II. noun Date: 1687 a despicable or miserable person

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. having a dejected or guilty appearance; shamefaced.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Hangdog Hang"dog`, n. A base, degraded person; a sneak; a gallows bird.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Hangdog Hang"dog`, a. Low; sneaking; ashamed. The poor colonel went out of the room with a hangdog look. --Thackeray.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

also hang-dog If you say that someone has a hangdog expression on their face, you mean that they look sad, and often guilty or ashamed. ADJ: usu ADJ n

Moby Thesaurus

abashed, abject, ashamed, backscratching, beggarly, blushing, bootlicking, chagrined, chapfallen, cowering, crawling, crestfallen, cringing, crouching, crushed, embarrassed, fawning, flattering, footlicking, groveling, humbled, humiliated, ingratiating, mealymouthed, mortified, obeisant, obsequious, on bended knee, out of countenance, parasitic, prostrate, red-faced, shamed, shamefaced, shamefast, sniveling, sponging, sycophantic, timeserving, toadeating, toadying, toadyish, truckling