From names to wordsMyths & disputes

lynch

During the American Revolution, Virginians imposed rough 'Lynch law' punishments without trial. The phrase probably honors Charles Lynch, a local justice; by 1835 'to lynch' meant to kill someone by mob action, and news of American lynchings carried the verb into European languages — and into Japanese and Korean, where rinchi means a group beating.

Weakest linkProbable

The story you may have heard

The word does not come from James Lynch FitzStephen, a mayor of Galway said to have hanged his own son in 1493; etymologists reject that 1904 story. It does not come from a 'Willie Lynch' slave-control speech either, which is a 20th-century fabrication.

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1780American English

Hops are evenly spaced; labels show the year each form is first attested.