hang about

1. (informal) To linger, loiter, or stay#Verb|stay.

   Synonyms: hang around, hang out

   If you hang about after the show, you can meet the cast.

   • 1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, “Black Dog Appears and Disappears”, in Treasure Island, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, OCLC 702939134 ↗, part I (The Old Buccaneer), page 12 ↗:

     The stranger kept hanging about just inside the inn door, peering round the corner like a cat waiting for a mouse.

   • 1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 16: Eumaeus]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare & Co.; Sylvia Beach, OCLC 560090630 ↗; republished London: Published for the Egoist Press, London by John Rodker, Paris, October 1922, OCLC 2297483 ↗, page 572 ↗:

     Although unusual in the Dublin area, he knew that it was not by any means unknown for desperadoes who had next to nothing to live on to be abroad waylaying and generally terrorising peaceable pedestrians by placing a pistol at their head in some secluded spot outside the city proper, famished loiterers of the Thames embankment category they might be hanging about there or simply marauders ready to decamp with whatever boodle they could in one fell swoop at a moment's notice, your money or your life, leaving you there to point a moral, gagged and garrotted.

2. (informal) Especially in the form to hang about with (someone): to spend#Verb|spend time#Noun|time or be friend#Noun|friends with.

   Synonyms: hang around, hang out

   My daughter likes to hang about with older kids after school.