hang together

1. To remain united. I know you two are mad at each other, but we really need to hang together as a family. Our governments must hang together against the heinous actions of this tyrant. They promised to hang together with the senator in her attempts at tax reform.

2. To fit together in a logical or sensible manner. I think they're lying because parts of their story just don't hang together. Are you sure you've got the pages in the right order? Because I'm reading this thing over, and it is not hanging together. If his alibi doesn't hang together, keep questioning him.

3. To spend time with a particular group. My friends and I used to hang together a lot more before they all got boyfriends. I hang together with the cheerleaders a lot because most of my friends are on the squad. Just because I'm in the math club doesn't mean I hang together with those nerds!

See also: hang, together

hang together

1. Fig. [for something or a group of people] to hold together; to remain intact. I hope our bridge group hangs together until we are old and gray. I don't think that this car will hang together for another minute.

2. Fig. [for a story] to flow from element to element and make sense. This story simply does not hang together. Your novel hangs together quite nicely.

3. Fig. [for people] to spend time together. We hung together for a few hours and then went our separate ways. The boys hung together throughout the evening.

See also: hang, together

hang together

1. Stand united, stick together, as in We must all hang together and tell the same story. [c. 1400]

2. Cohere, constitute a consistent whole. For example, The plot lines in that movie don't hang together. [Mid-1500s]

See also: hang, together

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

hang together

1. To stand united; stick together: Our band has managed to hang together for five years.

2. To constitute a coherent totality: The play had several plot lines that did not hang together.

3. To spend time together: My friends and I like to hang together at the mall.

See also: hang, together

See also:

References in periodicals archive

We must remember that all rights hang together - if one freedom is violated, they all are, including religious freedom."

Cash-strapped Rutherford helps Paula Jones sue President Clinton

Precisely because not all goods hang together, one irreplaceable aspect of integrity is a practiced facility for trading off more dispensable values for those that are less dispensable.

Integrity

Its neutrons and protons hang together as if they were components of a liquid.

Explosive expansion of atomic nuclei

inventor and statesman Ben Franklin said as the 13 colonies in America declared their independence from the British crown: "We must in deed all hang together, or most assuredly we will all hang separately."

Forging a new global partnership

Given such divergent foci, why does this book hang together so effectively?

The "Underclass" Debate: Views from History

Fortunately, despite their conference origins, those essays, together with the five introductory essays, hang together remarkably well.

Labour Relations in a Changing Environment

Ben Franklin warned us once: "Hang together or you're going to hang separately." Right now, I have the feeling we are hanging separately.

Business and the green theology

But the plot is too episodic to hang together as a whole.

Horror fails to be fright-fully good

GET ORGANISED Arrange your wardrobe so similar items hang together. When shorter items like blouses are grouped together you may have space underneath for a shoe rack or even a small chest of drawers.

DECLUTTER YOUR WARDROBE

Schubert's G major Sonata is a work difficult to bring off, as it doesn't easily hang together. Lewis sensibly treated it as more of a suite of four loosely-linked movements (it certainly lacks the cogency of the great late sonatas), bringing a command of colour and balance, and a subtext of song and dance which was entirely appropriate.

REVIEWS: Skillful pianist is simply poetry in motion; PAUL LEWIS Birmingham Town Hall *****

In the end, it felt like a mish-mash of music which really did not hang together all that well.

MUSIC Hoylake Choral Society/ Hoylake Chapel; 08 Culture Diary

Though both Carrey and Madsen do their very best, they can't distract from the fact that this is all too unconvincing to really hang together. To be honest Carrey should really stick to comedies like Dumb & Dumber.

AT THE MOVIES: Number & Dumber; THE NUMBER 23 (15)

Perhaps he could have done more with such a stellar cast, and perhaps the many stories don't hang together as tightly as they might.

cinema: The clever tale behind an American tragedy; BOBBY (15) * * * *

So if your friend's guitar lessons means having one less afternoon a week to hang together, no biggie.

Make it or break it

It's not like all the gay girls hang together and all the straight girls hang together.

Raising a racket with Martina Navratilova: the legendary lesbian tennis star talks about her new role as Olivia's spokeswoman and dispatches travel wisdom from years on the sports circuit