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  • lynch
    lynch
    verb (used with object)
    to put to death, especially by hanging, by mob action and without legal authority.
  • Lynch
    Lynch
    noun
    John Jack, 1917–1999, Irish political leader: prime minister 1966–73, 1977–79.
Synonyms

lynch

1 American  
[linch] / lɪntʃ /

verb (used with object)

lynches, present (3rd person singular) lynched, past participle, past lynching present participle
  1. 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.

  2. to criticize, condemn, etc., in public.

    He’s been unfairly lynched in the media.


Lynch 2 American  
[linch] / lɪntʃ /

noun

  1. John Jack, 1917–1999, Irish political leader: prime minister 1966–73, 1977–79.


Lynch 1 British  
/ lɪntʃ /

noun

  1. 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)

  2. John, known as Jack Lynch. 1917–99, Irish statesman; prime minister of the Republic of Ireland (1966–73; 1977–79)

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

lynch 2 British  
/ lɪntʃ /

verb

  1. (tr) (of a mob) to punish (a person) for some supposed offence by hanging without a trial

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Synonym Usage

See hang.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

Inflected Forms

Participles

Conjugated Forms

Present

Past

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.

Keep Reading on Vocabulary.com

Vocabulary lists containing lynch

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:

I have always been interested in the psychology of lynch mobs.

From Seattle Times May 4, 2023

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

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

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

That 70 million barrels might be the minimum operation levels based on technical considerations, but the DOE seems to “assume optimal operations,” said Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research.

From MarketWatch Jul. 15, 2026

Stanford didn’t respond to a request for comment on behalf of Lynch.

From The Wall Street Journal Jul. 14, 2026

Listening to Xiu Xiu’s “Eraserhead” on a hot and stormy Friday afternoon is an atavistic summoning of the many gifts that David Lynch left us to remember him by.

From Salon Jul. 10, 2026

The retired player known as CJ2K also called on three people to accept the ice bucket challenge — ex-Tennessee Titans teammate LenDale White and fellow former NFL greats Marshawn Lynch and Adam “Pacman” Jones.

From Los Angeles Times Jul. 2, 2026

On Monday, Lehman Brothers had filed for bankruptcy, and Merrill Lynch, having announced $55.2 billion in losses on subprime bond–backed CDOs, had sold itself to Bank of America.

From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis

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

In the 2017 Biennial, for example, the artist Dana Schutz, who is white, faced protests for painting the teenager Emmett Till, who was lynched, in his open casket.

From New York Times Mar. 8, 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

In spite of all that, Diddy's mother recently defended her son on Sunday and accused the media and others of engaging in a "public lynching."

From Salon Oct. 11, 2024

"To the media court, to the lynching that has been reserved for me, I have only my word to defend myself."

From BBC Dec. 14, 2023

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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