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straphanger. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
straphanger, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
straphanger in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
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English
Etymology
From strap + hanger.
Noun
straphanger (plural straphangers)
- A person who travels using public transportation (often standing up and holding on to a strap).
1970, Saul Bellow, chapter 1, in Mr. Sammler’s Planet, Greenwich, CT: Fawcett, published 1971, page 8:For several days, Mr. Sammler returning on the customary bus late afternoons from the Forty-second Street Library had been watching a pickpocket at work […] Mr. Sammler if he had not been a tall straphanger would not with his one good eye have seen these things happening.
2008 May 19, William Neuman, “$1 Billion Later, Subway Elevators Still Fail”, in New York Times, retrieved 16 Nov. 2009:The number of elevators has grown significantly since 1990, when the Americans With Disabilities Act set off a transformation of the aging transit system. For the disabled, the changes promised to open doors, while thousands of other straphangers—parents with strollers, older travelers—expected a small dose of convenience in a wearying city.
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