Other forms: cliffhangers
A cliffhanger is an ending that stops at the worst moment so you must come back. End on a cliffhanger, a real cliffhanger, cliffhanger ending.
It works by leaving a question open at exactly the point where an answer was due, which is why serials use it and why the technique is as old as serialised fiction. It also describes a contest whose outcome stays in doubt to the end: a cliffhanger of a match. Note that the word comes from the literal image of somebody left hanging from a cliff.
1nouncliffhangerAn ending that stops at the worst moment.
“The series ended on a cliffhanger, and fans had to wait a year to find out who survived.”
2nouncontestA contest whose outcome stays in doubt.
“The final was a real cliffhanger, decided by a penalty in the last minute.”
cliffhanger is a suspenseful ending.
Cliff plus hanger, evoking a character left hanging over a drop. It is often traced to Thomas Hardy's A Pair of Blue Eyes, serialised in 1873, where a character does exactly that.
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 serialized 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.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
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