lynch
verb (used with object)
to put to death, especially by hanging, by mob action and without legal authority.
lynch
1 American
[linch]
/ lɪntʃ /
verb (used with object)
-
lynches,
present (3rd person singular)
-
lynched,
past participle, past
-
lynching
present participle
-
to put to death, especially by hanging, by mob action and without legal authority.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, thousands of southern African Americans were lynched by white mobs.
-
to criticize, condemn, etc., in public.
He’s been unfairly lynched in the media.
Lynch
2
American
[linch]
/ lɪntʃ /
noun
Lynch
1
British
/ lɪntʃ /
noun
-
David. born 1946, US film director; his work includes the films Eraserhead (1977), Blue Velvet (1986), Wild at Heart (1990), Mulholland Drive (2001), and Inland Empire (2006), and the television series Twin Peaks (1990)
-
John, known as Jack Lynch. 1917–99, Irish statesman; prime minister of the Republic of Ireland (1966–73; 1977–79)
lynch
2
British
/ lɪntʃ /
verb
Synonym Usage
See hang.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
lynchsimple
-
lynchessimple
-
have lynchedperfect
-
has lynchedperfect
-
am lynchingprogressive
-
are lynchingprogressive
-
is lynchingprogressive
-
have been lynchingperfect progressive
-
has been lynchingperfect progressive
Past
-
lynchedsimple
-
had lynchedperfect
-
was lynchingprogressive
-
were lynchingprogressive
-
had been lynchingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of lynch
An Americanism first recorded in 1825–35; verb use of lynch in lynch law
Explanation
To lynch is to murder, or unlawfully kill. When an angry mob kills someone they believe is guilty of a crime, they lynch that person. Through history, when a group of people murders someone, especially by hanging him by the neck, they are usually said to lynch him. This was unfortunately not uncommon during the Civil Rights struggle of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the American South: if a white community believed an African American had done something wrong, they would sometimes lynch him. Lynch is named after Justice Charles Lynch, who condoned mob justice during the American Revolution.
Vocabulary lists containing lynch
Life Is So Good
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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
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Scrabble: Words with no Vowels
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Lives Lived: Harold Brown was one of the last surviving Black pilots of the Tuskegee Airmen and faced a lynch mob of villagers in Austria after his plane was downed in 1945.
From New York Times ● Feb. 1, 2023
Angry readers wrote to The Times in response to my favorable review of the series, insisting I was part of a lynch mob: “Shame on you!”
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 14, 2021
The verb to lynch means to execute without a trial or due process.
From Washington Times ● Oct. 23, 2019
I learned that my fellow Seattleites found equivalency between a lynch mob and a mere Civil War re-enactment.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 29, 2017
“Oh, that. Well, to hear the Post tell it, we lynch ’em for breakfast; the Journal doesn’t care; and the Times is so wrapped up in its duty to posterity it bores you to death.
From "Go Set a Watchman: A Novel" by Harper Lee
Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Merrill Lynch set up shop; some started calling the downtown “Wall Street West.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 6, 2026
His son, the film director Riley Sweeney Lynch, recalls him turning these excursions into a game.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 3, 2026
That conviction raised the stakes as Griffin and Day assembled their first exhibition without Lynch.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 3, 2026
How, then, to explain the survival of Neal and Lynch, two longtime members of Congress who put down progressive challenges from first-time candidates last night?
From Slate ● Sep. 2, 2026
It’s a new school set up to create the leaders of tomorrow; corporate internships are mandatory; the higher-ups of Merrill Lynch come and speak to classes and distribute travel mugs and stuff.
From "It’s Kind of a Funny Story" by Ned Vizzini
US President Joe Biden established a national monument to honour Emmett Till, a black teenager who was lynched in 1955 in Mississippi, and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, on Tuesday.
From BBC ● Jul. 25, 2023
“Leopoldstadt” went on to win best play, while best musical revival went to another searing work about antisemitism: “Parade,” starring Ben Platt as Leo Frank, a Jewish man who was lynched in 1915 in Georgia.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 12, 2023
The white woman who accused Black teenager Emmett Till of making improper advances before he was lynched in Mississippi in 1955 has died in hospice care in Louisiana, a coroner’s report shows.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 27, 2023
You do not expect the star of a musical about a man lynched by an antisemitic mob to be his wife.
From New York Times ● Mar. 16, 2023
As of 1920, about 13 out of every 100 black children died in infancy, or roughly 20,000 children each year—compared to 28 people who were lynched in a year.
From "Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything" by Steven D. Levitt
The National Memorial is the first institution of its kind dedicated to the legacy of the Black Americans who were the victims of the racial terror of lynching.
From Salon ● Apr. 18, 2025
The country singer labeled allegations that the song or video made references to lynching or that it is racially charged as “meritless” and “dangerous.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 11, 2023
The law makes lynching a federal hate crime.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 9, 2023
The accusations featured in the 2019 documentary Leaving Neverland, which Jackson's family described as a "public lynching".
From BBC ● Aug. 19, 2023
Mrs. Malloy says Negro people came here to escape lynching and inhumane treatment.
From "Betty Before X" by Ilyasah Shabazz and Renée Watson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
