hanging

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Execution on a gallows.
2. n. Something, such as a tapestry, that is hung.
3. n. A descending slope or an inclination.
4. adj. Situated on a sharp declivity.
5. adj. Projecting downward; overhanging.
6. adj. Suited for holding something that hangs.
7. adj. Deserving death by hanging: a hanging crime.
8. adj. Disposed to inflict severe sentences, such as death by hanging: a hanging judge.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The act of suspending, or the state of being suspended.
2. n. Specifically Suspension by the neck; particularly, capital punishment by suspension with strangulation, by means of a rope with a noose at one end which is placed about the neck, the other end being attached to a beam.
3. n. That which hangs or is pendent. Specifically — A piece of textile fabric, such as tapestry, used to cover in part the wall of a room, or as a curtain at a door or window.
4. n. plural The material with which the walls of a room are draped or covered, including even paper which is pasted upon them, as in the term paper-hangings. See arras, tapestry, and curtain.
5. n. plural The sloping side of a hill.
6. Requiring or deserving punishment by the halter.
7. Suggesting or foreboding death by the halter.
8. Unfixed; floating.

Wiktionary

1. v. present participle of hang.
2. adj. Suspended.
3. n. The act of hanging a person (or oneself) by the neck in order to execute that person (or to commit suicide).
4. n. A public event at which a person is hanged.
5. n. Anything wide, high and rather thin that is hung as a decorative element (such as curtains, gobelins, wallpaper or posters).
6. n. The way in which hangings (decorations) are arranged.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. adj. Requiring, deserving, or foreboding death by the halter.
2. adj. Suspended from above; pendent.
3. adj. Adapted for sustaining a hanging object.
4. n. The act of suspending anything; the state of being suspended.
5. n. Death by suspension; execution by a halter.
6. n. That which is hung as lining or drapery for the walls of a room, as tapestry, paper, etc., or to cover or drape a door or window; -- used chiefly in the plural.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a form of capital punishment; victim is suspended by the neck from a gallows or gibbet until dead
2. n. decoration that is hung (as a tapestry) on a wall or over a window
3. n. the act of suspending something (hanging it from above so it moves freely)