What is hung in grammar?

It’s one of the few times when grammar becomes a matter of life and death.

Here’s a tip: Want to make sure your writing shines? Grammarly can check your spelling and save you from grammar and punctuation mistakes. It even proofreads your text, so your work is extra polished wherever you write.

Your writing, at its best Grammarly helps you communicate confidently Write with Grammarly

Hung is the past tense of to hang when it means “to suspend or be suspended.”

Hanged is the past tense of to hang when it means “to kill someone by tying a rope attached from above and removing the support from beneath.”

Clothes can be hung on hangers and pictures can be hung on walls. Some people use the rule of thumb that things are hung and people are hanged, but that doesn’t always work out the way it should. It is possible to suspend people without intending to hurt them—for example, to harness someone to a bungee cord and dangle them off the bridge (which may seem like tempting death, but that’s more of an opinion than a fact).

We hung all of our clothes on hangers when we unpacked our moving boxes. I ran straight home from school with my Grammar MVP Award and hung it on the wall.

If you are deciding between hanged vs. hung and an act of execution is involved, always choose hanged. Hanged can also be used reflexively to refer to suicides (e.g., he hanged himself, they hanged themselves).

H. H. Holmes was hung for murder in 1896.

H. H. Holmes was hanged for murder in 1896.

The terminally ill man hung himself rather than face a torturous demise.

The terminally ill man hanged himself rather than face a torturous demise.

So when you are playing the letter game Hangman, the figure you draw is your hanged man, not your hung man.

Because it was common practice in centuries past not only to execute criminals by hanging but to also display their bodies for a period of time to deter other potential criminals, it is just possible that you will need to elucidate in your writing that a deceased person spent some time suspended post-execution.

Conveniently, history is rife with examples.

Captain Kidd was hanged at Execution Dock, London, in 1701. He was gibbeted and hung over the River Thames for a further three years as a warning to pirates.

Certain phrasal verbs containing hang confuse some writers as well. To hang out, which means “to casually socialize with friends,” should become hung out in the past tense. Hanged out implies something much less casual (and more deadly).

We hanged out at my mother’s house last Friday night.

We hung out at my mother’s house last Friday night.

Similarly, to be overly concerned about something is to get hung up on it, not hanged up.

Sure, I didn’t wash my hands before cooking dinner, but don’t get hanged up on it.

Some people bristle when they hear hanged or hung used incorrectly. Their blood boils. Their vision blacks out. Mixing up hung and hanged will make these people thoroughly cheesed off and mad as heck. Irate copy editors are no fun, but you can escape their ire. Read on.

The standard rule for the past tense of hang is this: in almost all situations, you should use the word hung.

I hung a picture of Noah Webster on the wall. After school, she hung out in the library.

Use hanged when referring to a person being suspended by a rope around the neck until dead.

The Salem "witches" were not burned; they were hanged. Justice Wargrave ordered Edward Seton to be hanged by the neck until dead.

It's not that simple, however: most usage guides reserve hanged for people subjected to death, which means if an inanimate object is suspended from a gallows, the correct term is hung.

Despised by the voters, he was hung in effigy.

A stripped-down version of why we have these two different words is that the word hang came from two different verbs in Old English (and possibly also one from Old Norse). One of these Old English verbs was what we might think of as a regular verb, and this gave rise to hanged; the other was irregular, and ended up becoming hung.

Hanged and hung were used interchangeably for hundreds of years, although over time the one from the irregular verb (hung) eventually became the more common one. Hanged retained its position when used to refer to death by hanging, possibly due to being favored by judges who were passing a sentence. However, both forms are commonly found, and both are commonly found used in either sense.

Is the distinction important? It's still commonly found in usage guides, which typically say that the past and the past participle of hang should be hanged only when referring to a person being subjected to death. Hung is preferred, at least by people who make a distinction, in almost every circumstance. However, not everyone makes this distinction. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage has a take on this that differs slightly from the one commonly found in usage guides:

In other words, observing this distinction will help you to avoid criticism from people with strong feelings on the subject. But don't get too hung up about it.

Hung is the past tense of to hang when it means “to suspend or be suspended.” Hanged is the past tense of to hang when it means “to kill someone by tying a rope attached from above and removing the support from beneath.”

Do you need help understanding the difference between “hanged” and “hung”? If so, don’t worry – you’re not alone! Many people struggle to tell the two apart. Understanding this important vocabulary distinction is essential for better communication in English – and that’s where I come in.

In this blog post, I’ll explain the difference between “hanged” and “hung” and provide plenty of examples to better understand each word’s meaning.

Both “hanged” and “hung” are past tenses of the verb hang, but they have different meanings based on the context in question. Objects are usually hung, but so are people without the intention of hurting them (like those hung from a bungee jumping cord). People that were executed via capital punishment were “hanged.”

The difference between hanged and hung lies mostly in their meaning.

“Hung” is the past tense form of the verb “to hang,” and it’s used when talking about something suspended, usually an object.

“Hanged” is also the past tense of the verb “to hang,” but we use it when talking about a person sadly killed by hanging.

In short:

We use “hung” mostly when talking about something suspended from above. For example, clothes are hung from a clothesline while pictures are hung on the wall.

However, don’t assume that “hang” is exclusive to objects and “hanged” to people. When someone is suspended without the intention of hurting/killing them, they are also hung.

For example:

English verbs are funny things. Hung can also be part of different phrases and English expressions. It is used in a sentence in many different ways and can add an extra layer of expressiveness to your speech.

Most commonly, it’s used to describe someone or something with a lot of power or influence. For example, if you wanted to describe the most popular kid in school, you could say they’re “hung like a celebrity.”

It can be used when talking about decisions with lasting implications. For example, you might say, “That motion was hung up for so long that it caused irrevocable damage.”

As you can see, “hung” can convey seriousness, power, or humor –or all three at once!

Here are other correct usage examples of the word “hung”:

When using “hanged,” we refer strictly to the act of execution. It is also correct to use it in sentences that refer to suicide.

For example:

The most important difference between these two words is understanding what they mean based on the context they’re used in.

You will know when to use the correct past tense of “to hang” once you figure out whether the sentence refers to execution or has some other meaning.

There is a good amount of confusion surrounding the verb hang and its various tenses. Is hanged or hung correct? Are they interchangeable? If not, what is the difference between the two?

In this post, I want to go over some basic tenses of the verb hang, illustrate them to you with example sentences, and give you a few tips to remember when to use which one for the future.

After reading this post, you shouldn’t have any trouble picking the correct tense to include in your writing.

Hang, of course, is the present tense form of the verb. Hang has a few different uses and meanings.

For example,

Hanged is the past tense and past participle of hang only when used in the sense of “put to death by hanging.”

For example,

It’s important to remember that hanged has a very specific use. We only use hanged when we are referring to the killing of a human being by suspending the person by the neck. With all other past tenses of hang, you will want to use hung.

And if death is not intended or likely, or the person is suspended by a body part other than the neck, use hung.

For example,

Hung is the regular past tense of hang. For example, the past tense of all of the beginning examples would use hung.

All inanimate objects, such as paintings, shelves, or Christmas ornaments are hung.

Some will say that these two words, hanged vs. hung, can be used interchangeably, even in the sense of “put to death by hanging,” and this is corroborated by some usage guides such as Fowler’s, stating that it isn’t necessarily erroneous to use hung in the case of executions, just less customary in Standard English.

However, I highly advise against using these words interchangeably. The vast majority of writing professionals object to the use of hung in execution contexts. The 2008 American Heritage Dictionary Usage Panel Survey showed 71 percent of experts objected to hung used in this sense. The Panel’s opposition has remained strong since the survey began in the 1960s.

The Chicago Manual of Style and The AP Stylebook both prescribe the traditional distinction, so it is probably in your best interest as a writer to do the same.

The AP Style entry on hanged vs. hung states,

One hangs a picture, a criminal or oneself.

For past tense or the passive, use hanged when referring to execution or suicides, hung for other actions.

It’s good to know when to use which word, but you might be wondering, “Why in the first place is there two different past-tense forms of the same word?” There actually is a pretty neat history as to why.

According to Fowler’s Modern English Usage Guide, in Old English there were actually two different words for hang (hon and hangen), and the entanglement of these words (plus an Old Norse word hengjan) is why we have two past-tense forms for the same word in modern English.

A good mnemonic to remember the difference is the following sentence,

This echoes what I said above, to use hung with inanimate objects like curtains, but to use hanged to refer to death by hanging.

The two words, hung vs. hanged, are both the past tense of hang but have different uses in a sentence.

Hanged refers to death by hanging, whether it be suicide or execution.

Hung is used is all other references.