[klif-hang-er] 
| 1. | a melodramatic adventure serial in which each installment ends in suspense in order to interest the reader or viewer in the next installment. |
| 2. | a situation or contest of which the outcome is suspensefully uncertain up to the very last moment: The game was a cliff-hanger, but our team finally won. |
cliff-hanger
a novel or other work appearing (as in a magazine) in parts at intervals. Novels written in the 19th century were commonly published as serials. Many works by Charles Dickens, George Eliot, William Makepeace Thackeray, Anthony Trollope, and others first appeared serially in such magazines as Dickens's Household Words and Thackeray's The Cornhill Magazine.
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