lynch mob

American  

[linch mob] / ˈlɪntʃ ˌmɒb /

noun

1. a crowd of people without legal authority who are intent on putting someone to death for an alleged offense.

   The city was once a real frontier town of gunslingers, lynch mobs, and vigilante justice.

   African Americans were regularly attacked by white lynch mobs if they "stepped out of line."

2. a group of people who publicly accuse and attack someone in a vicious way in an effort to destroy their reputation.

   After his controversial ruling, the judge was the victim of a lynch mob on social media.

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adjective

1. Also lynch-mob relating to or characteristic or reminiscent of a group of people trying to destroy someone’s reputation or kill someone without legal authority.

   There was a lynch mob mentality coming out in a number of the posts, so the moderator shut down the thread.

   The basic facts of the incident were lost in the lynch-mob atmosphere that prevailed on campus.

verb (used with object)

1. none lynch-mob (of a group) to publicly accuse and attack someone in a vicious way in an effort to destroy their reputation.

   Let's try to be fair and not lynch-mob the whole video gaming industry over this one bad outcome.

Etymology

Origin of lynch mob

First recorded in 1830–40

Example Sentences

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

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

From Seattle Times

As conveyed by Alfred Uhry’s book, the dreadful horror of Frank’s fate — a vicious lynch mob overrules the governor’s decision to commute Frank’s death sentence — freights “Parade” with a wearying inevitability.

From Washington Post

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

He compared the riot to “a lynch mob of 150 years ago,” and lamented how many Americans have become “hate-filled.”

From Washington Post

Related Words

• detachment