play hanger-hangar-illustrations
Commonly Confused

Is It 'Hanger' or 'Hangar'?

How to remember which is which


Editor Serenity Carr breaks down hanger vs. hangar with a simple trick to keep them apart.

Transcript

Hanger. There's the one for clothes and the one for airplanes. They sound the same but are spelled differently. One ends in er, the other ends in ar. So how do you remember which is which? The airplane hangar ends in ar, which is one letter short of air.

Up next

play hanger-hangar-illustrations
Is It 'Hanger' or 'Hangar'?

 

How to remember which is which

play contractions
On Contractions of Multiple Words

 

You all would not have guessed some of these

play semantic bleaching text on white background
What Is 'Semantic Bleaching'?

 

How 'literally' can mean "figuratively"

play ismo merriam webster trunk boot
Some Odd Words with ISMO: "Junk in the Trunk"

 

Comedian ISMO on what separates a boot from a trunk

play video websters video of 1864
Webster's Dictionary of 1864

 

The landmark edition that transformed the way dictionaries are made.

play video how a word gets into the dicionary
How a Word Gets into the Dictionary

 

What our editors are looking for when they enter words in Merriam-Webster.

play ismo merriam webster one
Some Odd Words with ISMO: "The One-derful Won"

 

Comedian ISMO tries to figure out 'one' and 'two'