Meaning & use
hang your shingle
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Meanings
phraseidiominformalAmerican
to start working on your own as a professional, especially a doctor or lawyer, by putting up a sign for your office.
Grammar: Used as a fixed phrase with a possessive: hang your/his/her shingle. It has no passive form.
Patterns
- hang your shingle
- hang a shingle
- hang your shingle as something
- hang your shingle in a place
After ten years at a big firm, she hung her shingle and opened a small office downtown.
He hung his shingle as a family doctor in the town where he grew up.
New lawyers often hang their shingle before they have many clients.
phraseidiominformalhumorousAmerican
to begin doing any kind of independent work or business under your own name.
Grammar: Often used slightly humorously for any self-employed start, not only law or medicine.
Patterns
- hang your shingle
- hang out your shingle
When the bakery closed, she hung her shingle as a private cake maker.
He hung out his shingle as a consultant after being laid off.
Common combinations
- hang your shingle as a lawyer
- She hung her shingle as a lawyer in a quiet suburb.
- hang your shingle downtown
- He hung his shingle downtown and waited for the first client.
- hang out your shingle
- After the course, he hung out his shingle as a piano teacher.
- decide to hang your shingle
- They decided to hang their shingle rather than join another practice.
Synonyms and how they differ
- set up shop
- More general and slightly more informal; it can describe any business, while hanging your shingle suggests a professional practice such as law or medicine.
- go into practice
- Neutral and formal; it states the fact of working independently without the image of putting up a sign.
- open your own office
- Plain and literal; it fits any workplace, but it does not carry the American professional flavor of the idiom.
Opposites
Word family
- shingle noun
- A small signboard, especially one showing a professional's name and office.
- self-employed adjective
- Describing someone who works for themselves rather than for an employer.
Commonly confused: hang your shingle or shingle? hang your shingle or hang up?
hang your shingle vs shingle
As a noun, shingle usually means a flat piece of wood or other material used to cover a roof; the idiom comes from the small signboard sense.
hang your shingle vs hang up
Hang up means to end a phone call or to put clothes on a hook; the idiom hang your shingle has nothing to do with either action.
Practice
Which sentence uses the idiom correctly?
Choose one answer.
The fixed phrase keeps a singular shingle and the past form hung. Option 1 wrongly makes it plural, option 2 uses hanged, which is for executions, and option 3 adds up, which changes the meaning to ending a call or putting something away.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “hang your shingle”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.