hang about

hang about (third-person singular simple present hangs about, present participle hanging about, simple past and past participle hung about)

1. (informal) To stay, linger or loiter.

   If you hang about after the show, you can meet the cast.

   • 1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, Limited, published 14 November 1883, OCLC 702939134, (please specify |part=I to VI):

     The stranger kept hanging about just inside the inn door, peering round the corner like a cat waiting for a mouse.

   • 1922 February, James Joyce, Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare & Co.; Sylvia Beach, OCLC 560090630; republished London: Published for the Egoist Press, London by John Rodker, Paris, October 1922, OCLC 2297483:

     Episode 16

     Though unusual in the Dublin area he knew that it was not by any means unknown for desperadoes who had next to nothing to live on to be abroad waylaying and generally terrorising peaceable pedestrians by placing a pistol at their head in some secluded spot outside the city proper, famished loiterers of the Thames embankment category they might be hanging about there or simply marauders ready to decamp with whatever boodle they could in one fell swoop at a moment's notice, your money or your life, leaving you there to point a moral, gagged and garrotted.

2. (informal) To spend time or be friends (especially to hang about with someone).

   My daughter likes to hang about with older kids after school.

• hang around
• hang out