Cliffhanger
noun ·3 syllables ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 An ending or stopping point calculated to leave a story unresolved, in order to create suspense.
"Back in the early 80s, the hit series Dallas kept the nation guessing with its season-ending cliffhanger "Who Shot J.R.?""
- 2 an episode that ends in suspense wordnet
- 3 An outcome which is awaited with keen anticipation, especially one which is delayed for a period of time or which is not known until the last minute. broadly
"This presidential election is such a cliffhanger. Will it be the rising star Dmitry "Obamovich" Medvedev? Or the veteran Gennady "McCainovich" Zyuganov?"
- 4 a contest whose outcome is uncertain up to the very end wordnet
Synonyms
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More examples"Was the cliffhanger a downer or did it whet your appetite for more?"
Etymology
From cliff + hanger, evoking the image of someone left hanging from a cliff, thereby having an uncertain fate. The term "cliffhanger" is considered to have originated with the serialised version of Thomas Hardy's "A Pair of Blue Eyes", published in Tinsley's Magazine in the 1870s, in which the character Henry Knight is left hanging off of a cliff. It was inspired by a real life story from his wife Emma's childhood, when she had to rescue one of her school friends from a similar position.
Related phrases
More for "cliffhanger"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.