lynch mob
13
9.4
- noun
- /lɪnʧ mɑb/
- Offensive
:
turba linchadora
- The townspeople formed a lynch mob to seek justice after the alleged crime.
So like when the lynch mob came and lynched someone, there was no prosecution.
- So like when the lynch mob came and lynched someone, there was no prosecution.
- They got me into a town, but then there was a lynch mob trying to like get me back into Iraq.
Examples
-
Fearing for his safety, he hid from the lynch mob that was forming outside the jail.
-
If they searched me, I was doomed, but I couldn't run when all around me stood a lynch mob.
Fiction book (1990) -
Is he part of the lynch mob now?
-
"There is a great lynch mob among us.
-
We know you were not part of this lynch mob everyone believes you are part of.
Blog text (2) -
One face in this lynch mob stands out.
Fiction book (1991) -
Last time they found a white woman dead on this hill, the police turned into a lynch mob, getting the whole city screaming behind them.
Fiction book (1993) -
There'll be no lynch mob on my watch, do you understand?
-
This Schneider fellow was very popular, and pretty soon a lynch mob had formed.
-
We drove through a lynch mob, pressed our faces against the floorboard.
Synonyms
180
5.3
A group of criminals who run illegal businesses together
23
9.7
A secret group that kills political opponents or accused criminals without a trial
Antonyms
660
3.2
The work police do to stop crime, find criminals, and make people obey the law
How Lawful
660
3.2
∞
2.7
6
8.9
- Offensive
13
9.4
- Offensive
30
9.9
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: a 'lynch mob' is literally a 'mob' that 'lynches' people, so a learner who knows 'lynch' (to kill unlawfully, often by hanging) and 'mob' (a disorderly crowd) can infer the phrase's meaning. This follows standard noun-compound logic and is therefore immediately understandable without special idiomatic knowledge.
Etymology
Lynch mob may come from a man named Charles Lynch, who in the 1700s punished people himself instead of using a court. The image of a crowd, a mob, punishing or 'hanging' someone to lynch them helps explain why lynch mob means a group that kills or threatens someone 'without legal right'.