Lynching in common usage means hanging of someone by a mob. In the past, criminals were hanged by the community, rather than waiting for the law to make up its mind. This was a classic theme of old TV westerns, and overstated to some extent in folklore, but it did happen regularly as a form of mob justice. A 'lynch mob' in metaphoric modern usage is a group of angry people. In US slang, it's sometimes called a 'necktie party'. It was also used by some groups as a means of persecution of minorities. Lynching is classed as murder, in modern law. |
Examples of Lynching:
That sock advertisement has produced a lynch mob, complaining about the imagery.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_in_the_United_States https://www.english.illinois.edu/Maps/poets/g_l/lynching/lynching.htm |
![]() An african american man lynched from a tree, 1925. |