1. To wait for an event that will never occur. "The sYstem is hanging because it can' t read from the crashed drive". See wedged, hung. 2. To wait for some event to occur to hang around until something happens. "The program displaYs a menu and then hangs until You tYpe a character." Compare block. 3. To attach a peripheral device, especiallY in the construction "hang off": "We' re going to hang another tape drive off the file server." Implies a device attached with cables, rather than something that is strictlY inside the machine' s chassis.