hangdog

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   A base, degraded person.

2. 2

   Low

   Low; sneaking; ashamed.

   • The poor colonel went out of the room with a hangdog look.
   • Asper Argo, the Well-Beloved, Commdor of the Korellian Republic greeted his wife’s entry by a hangdog lowering of his scanty eyebrows. To her at least, his self-adopted epithet did not apply. Even he knew that.
   • He looked at them in a kind of dread, not daring to ask for details; and he observed that they, too, looked as though they had been in a battle; something hangdog in their looks suggested that they had been put to flight.
3. 3

   To move or loiter in a sneaking or ashamed manner.

   • With a twenty-one to three victory, Pinewood high-stepped it off the field while our Falcons hangdogged their way to the locker room.
   • Just a few stragglers left hangdogging around, latchkey types with no place to be, cutting up in the dim and bleachered gym perimeter.

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