Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. society) self-obsessed, snobbish.

1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 156/1: Hung up (Soc., 1879). Said where in lower classes stuck up would be used.
1972		Milner & Milner Black Players 60: People get hung up and they start to evolve into animals and gangsters and so-called slick people [...] destroying each other.

2. delayed or hindered.

1891		Fun 10 June 237: Ah! by Bendigo, I forgot! Grimmy’s hung up! [...] [F&H].
1911		Gem 16 Sept. 2: The car was hung up in Wayland with a burst tyre.
1926		Judge (NY) 91 July-Dec. 31: Hung Up - Delayed, detained.
1957		Kerouac On The Road (1972) 150: He used to get us so hung-up in Texas here.
1960		Mad mag. Sept. 46: I’m hung up in this crazy hotel in Lexington, Kentucky.
1966		H.S. Thompson Hell’s Angels (1967) 112: Lack of signs, unusual laws, or anything else that could get them hung up.
1978		H. Selby Jr Requiem for a Dream (1987) 111: These people don’t take too kindly to being hung up with a pound of pure out there in the wide open spaces.

3. desperate, poor; in trouble, difficulties.

1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 156/1: Hung up [...] From the American – where personal catastrophe is referred to by this phrase.
1950		Kerouac letter 27 Dec. in Charters I (1995) 244: If only you weren’t so hung up and could yourself save a few Texcoco’s worth of years and come with us.
1959		‘Paul Merchant’ ‘Sex Gang’ in Pulling a Train’ (2012) [ebook] He was hung up but good this time.
1969		C. Sellers Where Have All the Soldiers Gone 36: ‘He’s liable to get his own squad hung up because he likes to play games’.
1967		P. Thomas Down These Mean Streets (1970) 39: I’m just like any other man, one hunk of shit hung up.
1972		D. Claerbaut Black Jargon in White America 69: hung up v. […] 2. to be burdened with problems.

4. (orig. US) unhappy, depressed, neurotic, anxious.

1945		Lou Shelly Hepcats Jive Talk Dict. n.p.: hung up: mixed up.
1951		Kerouac letter 10 June in Charters I (1995) 318: I get as much hung up, man, as you did in your most hungup days.
1959		Mad mag. Sept. 41: Now we’re real hung up in a crazy big hassle.
1964		L. Hansberry Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window in Three Negro Plays (1969) II ii: She’s a hung-up kid, David.
1970		G.F. Newman Sir, You Bastard 119: Hung up and sweating, his withdrawal symptoms would do all the detectives’ work.
1984		(con. 1964–73) W. Terry Bloods (1985) 25: A lot of gray guys who wasn’t racially hung up would be there.
1995		M. Dibdin Dark Spectre (1996) 26: Straight people might get hung up on disagreements and dissent, but we knew it was all in your head.

5. (orig. US, also hung on) obsessed or infatuated.

1950		N. Cassady letter in Charters (1993) 200: It seems everything I write about happens in a bathroom, don’t think I’m hungup that way.
1967		L. Bruce Essential Lenny Bruce 15: I don’t get hung up with [...] integration.
1975		E. Torres Carlito’s Way 67: I got hung on a broad bad.
1980		E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 52: People that live in my area are so hung up on money.
2004		L. Redhead Peepshow [ebook] This stockbroker was so hung up on her he bought her a BMW.

6. (US drugs) intoxicated.

1949		Hal Ellson Duke 4: You get all hung up when you’re talking. You’re digging the cat [...] You’re suddenly brilliant. Nobody can put nothing on you. [Ibid.] 34: Any time you want to get hanged-up, let me know. I got connections.
1953		W. Brown Run, Chico, Run (1959) 33: Every time Loco gets hung up he starts moshing me around.

7. (US drugs) addicted.

1967

in S. Harris Hellhole 154: It’s always the worst hung-up junkies who do the most stooling.