lynch
verb (used with object)
to put to death, especially by hanging, by mob action and without legal authority.
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Lynch's.
lynch
1 American
[linch]
/ lɪntʃ /
verb (used with object)
-
lynches,
present (3rd person singular)
-
lynched,
past participle, past
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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)
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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
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has lynchedperfect
-
am lynchingprogressive
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are lynchingprogressive
-
is lynchingprogressive
-
have been lynchingperfect progressive
-
has been lynchingperfect progressive
Past
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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:
With the shoeshine under arrest, a Black militia gathered at a local jail to prevent a lynch mob from kidnapping and murdering him.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 3, 2023
He compared the riot to “a lynch mob of 150 years ago,” and lamented how many Americans have become “hate-filled.”
From Washington Post ● Jan. 27, 2023
In 1962, the white lawyer in “To Kill a Mockingbird” confronts a lynch mob intent on hanging his client, an innocent Black man, later telling the jury, “In our courts, all men are created equal.”
From New York Times ● Sep. 7, 2022
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
“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
Mattel announced a surprise succession in late September, naming Condé Nast Chief Executive Roger Lynch as its next CEO.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 21, 2026
The original cast included Lea Michele, Amber Riley, the late Cory Monteith, Jane Lynch and Matthew Morrison as Will Schuester, the optimistic teacher leading the fictional McKinley High's glee club.
From BBC ● Oct. 21, 2026
"There's a lot of evidence about Shell knowing as early as in the 1960s" that fossil fuels contributed to global warming, said Madeleine Lynch, a campaigner on the "Odette case."
From Barron's ● Oct. 15, 2026
“We can either stick our head in the sand and hope that there are no pullbacks,” Lynch said.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 12, 2026
Merrill’s CFO, Jeff Edwards, told Bloomberg News that the market need not worry about this, as “active risk management” had allowed Merrill Lynch to reduce its exposure to the lower-rated subprime bonds.
From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis
In Zambia, the hearsay about disappearing genitals first gained traction in March when a woman was lynched, going on to spread panic across the border in Tanzania.
From BBC ● Sep. 3, 2026
“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
He called Arbery the “Emmett Till of our day,” referencing the Black 14-year-old lynched in 1955.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 15, 2021
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
Stokes is clear that he does not know whether Fortune's death was a lynching, or whether race played a part at all.
From BBC ● Sep. 9, 2026
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
Also, we worked on reports and materials that seek to deepen the national conversation about the legacy of slavery and lynching and our nation's history of racial injustice.
From "Just Mercy" by Bryan Stevenson
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
