hanging off its hinges
- idiom
:
colgando de sus bisagras
- The old shed's door was hanging off its hinges after years of neglect.
Examples
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The old barn door is hanging off its hinges.
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After the accident, the mailbox was hanging off its hinges and barely standing.
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You could tell the building was abandoned because every window was hanging off its hinges.
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Look! It's hanging off its hinges.
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The gate was hanging off its hinges, making it impossible to open without pulling it away from the wall.
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After the storm, the garage door was hanging off its hinges, and we had to prop it up until it could be fixed.
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The front door of the abandoned house was hanging off its hinges, swaying in the wind and creaking loudly.
Synonyms
Attached so it drops down and is not fixed firmly
Antonyms
How Loose
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly composed from the parts: 'hang' (suspended), 'off' (away from/separated), 'its' (possessive) and 'hinges' (the door joints), so a learner can infer that the door is loose or partially detached. This is a literal, cross-linguistically common compositional image rather than an idiomatic shift, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents should grasp the meaning.
Etymology
The expression hanging off its hinges comes from the picture of a door whose hinges are loose or broken, so the door hangs at an angle and almost falls. That's why we use it to say something is 'not properly attached' or 'damaged and barely working'.