lynch

• POS: Noun, Verb (transitive)

CIDE DICTIONARY

lynch, v. t. [See Note under Lynch law.].

 To inflict punishment upon, especially death, without the forms of law, as when a mob captures and hangs a suspected person. See Lynch law.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

lynch, v.tr. (of a body of people) put (a person) to death for an alleged offence without a legal trial.

Idiom

lynch law the procedure of a self-constituted illegal court that punishes or executes.

Derivative

lyncher n. lynching n.

Etymology

Lynch's law, after Capt. W. Lynch of Virginia c.1780

THESAURUS

lynch

and quarter, annihilate, bereave of life, carry away, carry off, chloroform, cut down, cut off, deprive of life, destroy, dispatch, dispose of, do away with, do for, do to death, draw, end, execute, exterminate, finish, finish off, gibbet, hang, immolate, kill, launch into eternity, liquidate, make away with, martyr, martyrize, neck, noose, poison, purge, put away, put down, put to death, put to sleep, remove from life, sacrifice, scrag, slay, starve, stretch, string up, take life, take off

ROGET THESAURUS

lynch

Punishment

VB punish, chastise, chasten, castigate, correct, inflict punishment, administer correction, deal retributive justice, cowhide, lambaste, visit upon, pay, pay out, serve out, do for, make short work of, give a lesson to, serve one right, make an example of, have a rod in pickle for, give it one, strike, deal a blow to, administer the lash, smite, slap, slap the face, smack, cuff, box the ears, spank, thwack, thump, beat, lay on, swinge, buffet, thresh, thrash, pummel, drub, leather, trounce, sandbag, baste, belabor, lace, lace one's jacket, dress, dress down, give a dressing, trim, warm, wipe, tund, cob, bang, strap, comb, lash, lick, larrup, wallop, whop, flog, scourge, whip, birch, cane, give the stick, switch, flagellate, horsewhip, bastinado, towel, rub down with an oaken towel, rib roast, dust one's jacket, fustigate, pitch into, lay about one, beat black and blue, beat to a mummy, beat to a jelly, give a black eye, tar and feather, pelt, stone, lapidate, masthead, keelhaul, execute, bring to the block, bring to the gallows, behead, decapitate, guillotine, decollate, hang, turn off, gibbet, bowstring, hang draw and quarter, shoot, decimate, burn, break on the wheel, crucify, empale, impale, flay, lynch, electrocute, gas, send to the gas chamber, torture, put on, put to the rack, picket, banish, exile, transport, expel, ostracize, rusticate, drum out, dismiss, disbar, disbench, strike off the roll, unfrock, post, suffer, suffer for, suffer punishment, be flogged, be executed, suffer the ultimate penalty, be hanged, come to the gallows, mount the gallows, swing, twist in the wind, dance upon nothing, die in one's shoes, be rightly served, be electrocuted, fry, ride the lightning, face the firing squad.