hang fire

1. Delay, as in The advertising campaign is hanging fire until they decide how much to spend on it. This expression originally referred to the 17th-century flintlock musket, where the priming powder ignited but often failed to explode the main charge, a result called hanging fire. [c. 1800]

Related Words

• adjourn 
• arrest 
• bar 
• cease 
• defer 
• discontinue 
• eject 
• exclude 
• file 
• halt 
• interrupt 
• postpone 
• put off 
• reject 
• rule out 
• shelve 
• stay 
• waive 
• withhold