How to Use hangdog in a Sentence

hangdog

1 of 2 adjective
  • He came home with a hangdog expression on his face.
  • Strong, who is now forty-two, has the hangdog face of someone who wasn’t destined for stardom.
    — Michael Schulman, The New Yorker, 5 Dec. 2021
  • Jamie Spears, who is sixty-eight, has graying hair and a hangdog demeanor.
    — Jia Tolentino, The New Yorker, 3 July 2021
  • But Macy was born to play this sort of hangdog failure who hasn’t stopped betting on himself.
    — Tim Grierson, Vulture, 5 Feb. 2021
  • With his hangdog mien and pained smile, Strong excels most in the quiet moments of Kendall's inner turmoil.
    — Kristen Baldwin, EW.com, 4 Oct. 2021
  • Amid this oppressive gloom, Stone’s sallow, hangdog visage suggests someone wasting away before our very eyes.
    — Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 12 Mar. 2021
  • He might get dinged by fans for his occasionally hangdog body language — more on that later — but his personality is sneaky hilarious.
    — Susan Slusser, San Francisco Chronicle, 9 Aug. 2021
  • Rhys’s Mason—not yet an attorney—slumped his way through different levels of professional and personal dejection, with egg on his tie and a hangdog expression.
    — Sophie Gilbert, The Atlantic, 25 June 2020
  • Jay Duplass brings his best shambling hangdog moves to the role of Ji-Yoon’s crush, Bill, a recent widower in the heavy-drinking-and-screwing-up-at-work phase of grief.
    — Lidija Haas, The New Republic, 3 Sep. 2021
  • Kidman is rivaled occasionally by the craggy yet sympathetically hangdog performance from Grant as the prime suspect.
    — Washington Post, 22 Oct. 2020
  • And for all the understandable satisfaction the Atlanta Hawks and their fans have taken in this loud and stunningly robust season, the hangdog Italian was having little of it.
    — Arkansas Online, 5 July 2021
  • Dupontel, with his frazzled hair and hangdog middle-management visage, is terrific as the melancholy singleton whose commonality with Suze’s son is a stretch but serves to further connect the two potential lovebirds.
    — Mark Keizer, Variety, 24 Dec. 2021
  • David has his advantages, among them the physique of a Calvin Klein model, a face that is strikingly reminiscent of Roger Federer’s, and the appealingly brooding air of a hangdog puppy.
    — Naomi Fry, The New Yorker, 1 Mar. 2021

hangdog

2 of 2 noun
  • Stephen Rea is Eileen’s hangdog spouse, who can’t shop or cook.
    — Caryn James, The Hollywood Reporter, 10 July 2023
  • But that hangdog Villaraigosa was nowhere to be seen tonight.
    — Gustavo Arellano, Los Angeles Times, 6 May 2026
  • Mattfeld’s head dipped into a slight hangdog bow, and her eyes went dead.
    — New York Times, 1 July 2021
  • And didn't have this hangdog, morose quality that Brad brought to it.
    — H. Alan Scott, Newsweek, 11 Dec. 2024
  • Pattinson cuts through all of it, one hangdog expression and mouth-breather exclamation at a time.
    — David Fear, Rolling Stone, 6 Mar. 2025
  • Or Walter Matthau — with his legendary hangdog face — walking his sheepdog.
    — Peter Kiefer, The Hollywood Reporter, 31 Jan. 2025
  • Sam Lloyd, best known for his portrayal of hangdog lawyer Ted Buckland on Scrubs, has died.
    — Maureen Lee Lenker, EW.com, 1 May 2020
  • Kendall spends the first five episodes being more low-energy than a post-divorce Ross Geller, as hangdog as Droopy.
    — Sophie Gilbert, The Atlantic, 11 Aug. 2019
  • Japanese actor Hiroshi Abe has one of the great hangdog faces in cinema today.
    — Orange County Register, 24 Mar. 2017
  • His days are spent either sitting sadly on Iris’ bed with literal hangdog eyes or acting out and destroying things in her apartment.
    — Lindsey Bahr, Twin Cities, 2 Apr. 2025
  • Nobody knew, least of all Florentino Perez, whose baggy face was more hangdog than ever on Thursday.
    — Jonathan Wilson, SI.com, 31 May 2018
  • Dirk, a Corgi mix with a hangdog look, is older and four times the size of Penny, a tiny, social Chihuahua-pug hybrid.
    — Mary Helen Berg, USA TODAY, 13 May 2017
  • With his hangdog, morose visage and faced etched with crevices, Stanton was known for playing characters of innate sadness or darkness.
    — Chris Malone, Billboard, 15 Sep. 2017
  • Cook is all about accuracy rather than pace, an Angus Fraser without the hangdog expression.
    — Tim Ellis, Forbes.com, 21 May 2025
  • Julian and Neil take to goading and championing the understandably hangdog Matt.
    — Lisa Kennedy, Variety, 5 Feb. 2026
  • His normally hangdog expression would suddenly disappear behind a huge toothy grin.
    — David Wiegand, San Francisco Chronicle, 22 Mar. 2018
  • Murray gets the humor and the humanity in Anderson’s fussiness and never fails to bring it out, one hangdog expression at a time.
    — Joe Reid, Vulture, 26 June 2023
  • Because that’s the thing about fading American Ricks, with their Birks and their Wayfarers and their hangdog looks.
    — Amanda Whiting, Vulture, 2 Mar. 2025
  • Lacy’s vocals have the sort of hangdog ruefulness familiar to anyone who has failed to seize an opportunity, or has self-sabotaged their way out of something great.
    — Amanda Petrusich, The New Yorker, 22 Dec. 2022
  • And again, Sandler channels a hangdog torpor, almost a melancholic air, in a performance that bristles with comic realism.
    — Calum Marsh, New York Times, 31 Mar. 2023
  • Heads up, no hangdog Center Dwight Howard correctly observed the Hornets were hanging their heads when things got tough lately.
    — Rick Bonnell, charlotteobserver, 19 Dec. 2017
  • But who is the balding man with the hangdog expression, who now appears to be the most influential North Korean outside the Kim clan?
    — Charlie Campbell / Beijing, Time, 28 May 2018
  • Indeed, compared with the realistically creased faces and hangdog stares of the Cubs, the Boston fans behind them are closer to grotesques, an inhuman crush of caricatures.
    — Christopher Borrelli, Chicago Tribune, 10 Feb. 2026
  • If Shelly seems determined to mask the sinking feeling that his glory days are over, McKean suggests with a hangdog face that Aaranow is resigned to his obsolescence.
    — David Rooney, HollywoodReporter, 3 Sep. 2019
  • In his Broadway debut, Brody brings the same intensity and hangdog vulnerability that underscore his best film performances, and if his hip-hop Yo!
    — Greg Evans, Deadline, 15 Apr. 2026
  • In a career spanning half a century, Hall was a ubiquitous hangdog face whose doleful, weary appearance could shroud a booming intensity and humble sensitivity.
    — Jake Coyle, Chicago Tribune, 13 June 2022
  • His face, always stationed somewhere halfway to hangdog, seems to gain 20 new creases carved deep into his skin, accentuating his mournful eyes and his excruciated, heartbroken smile.
    — Kathryn Vanarendonk, Vulture, 17 Apr. 2026
  • Every actor works within a range that’s believable to them as performers, even Covino’s hangdog shiftiness as Paul, and Covino, as director, doesn’t push them outside of their comfort zone.
    — Katie Walsh, Chicago Tribune, 22 Aug. 2025
  • In each encounter, Riley, a chill, hangdog figure with mutton chops and a spray of freckles, was soft-spoken and receptive, curious and unhurried, but also a little elusive when necessary, knowing when to drift away.
    — Emily Nussbaum, New Yorker, 17 May 2026
  • His combustibility, his pugnaciousness, his scorching sarcasm, his intelligence, and his toughness all played off against his tortured hangdog eyes, his mild speech impediment in the early films, his vincibility.
    — Kyle Smith, National Review, 29 Nov. 2019

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'hangdog.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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