necktie party

plural necktie parties · alternative necktie-party

1. USdatedidiomaticAn execution by hanging, especially a lynching.

   I made my jail break just in time to keep from being invited as chief guest to a necktie party.

   1910, William MacLeod Raine, chapter 3, in A Texas Ranger

   3 more examples

   "I expect I'll have an invite to a necktie-party some day. . . . I'm always afraid the wrong necktie will be mine. Were you ever lynched?"

   1904, B. M. Bower, “The Lamb”, in The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories

   One peasant threw a grass rope over a hook high on the pole. Said Shupe: "It sure looked like a necktie party was being organized. I had no doubt they were going to hang me."

   1958 July 21, “Foreign Relations: Back from Russia”, in Time

   Last week, my 17-year-old son and I went to see the movie True Grit. . . . A triple hanging kicks the thing off with a snap as three corpses jerk violently from the gallows. The necktie party is followed by shootings, stabbings and a smorgasbord of violence.

   2011 January 17, Paul Andersen, “Cultural necrophilia”, in Aspen Times, USA, retrieved 30 Jun 2011