hangdog

noun

1. A base, degraded person.

adj

1. (not-comparable)Low; sneaking; ashamed.

   “The poor colonel went out of the room with a hangdog look.”

   “Asper Argo, the Well-Beloved, Commdor of the Korellian Republic greeted his wife’s entry by a hangdog lowering of his scanty eyebrows. To her at least, his self-adopted epithet did not apply. Even he knew that.”

   “He looked at them in a kind of dread, not daring to ask for details; and he observed that they, too, looked as though they had been in a battle; something hangdog in their looks suggested that they had been put to flight.”

   “Adam Sandler hangdog in the Levi’s Stadium stands, Jon Bon Jovi mooching on the sideline like a retired dentist on a cruise, Billie Joe Armstrong belting out American Idiot during the pre-game show under his motionless meringue of fogey-blond hair: were they a sign?”

verb

1. To move or loiter in a sneaking or ashamed manner.

   “With a twenty-one to three victory, Pinewood high-stepped it off the field while our Falcons hangdogged their way to the locker room.”

   “Just a few stragglers left hangdogging around, latchkey types with no place to be, cutting up in the dim and bleachered gym perimeter.”