hang over

hang over (third-person singular simple present hangs over, present participle hanging over, simple past and past participle hung over)

1. (transitive) To be threatening, to be imminent.

   A shadow of doubt hung over my academic future.

   • 1941 August, C. Hamilton Ellis, “The English Station”, in Railway Magazine, page 358:

     Now, cramped and outclassed as Euston has become, rebuilding hangs over it with an awful inevitability.

   • 2021 January 13, Christian Wolmar, “Read all about London's Cathedrals of Steam”, in RAIL, issue 922, page 63:

     There was, though, on that April day, a cloud hanging over what should have been an entirely optimistic story. London was deep in the first lockdown and the stations were all but empty.

• overhang