hanger

[Eng. hang; -er.] I. Ordinary Language : 1. One who hangs or causes to be hanged. 2. That by which anything is suspended, or by which it hangs; as the girdle or sword-belt in which the sword was suspended. "The carriages, sir, are the hangers." Shakesp.: Hamlet , v. 2. be performed, and the lungs inflated through the opening in the neck. In judicial hanging, the noose ought to be so adjusted as to produce immediate dislocation of the spinal column, death in that case being instantaneous. 2. Law : Hanging is the prescribed penalty of willful murder. In New York state electrocution (q. v.) is substituted for death by hanging. In Rhode Island, Michigan, and Wisconsin infliction of the death penalty is forbidden by law. Hanging, drawing, and quartering were once the punishment of treason in England. 3. Print .: The crooked appearance caused in a page of type by being locked up at the side before it is at the foot. hanging-bird, s. nail.] A small piece of skin hanging from the root of a finger-nail. [AGNAIL.] *hăng'-wite, s. [A. S. hangi an =to hang, wite = a fine.] Old Eng. Law : A fine or penalty on payment of which a person was made quit of a felon or thief hanged without trial or judgment. or escaped from custody. *hăng-wor-thy, a . [Eng. hang , and worthy.] Deserving of being hanged. "Their hang worthy necks." -Sidney: Arcadia , p. 426.