English

Alternative forms

• necktie-party

Noun

necktie party ‎(plural necktie parties)

1. (US, idiomatic, dated) An execution by hanging, especially a lynching.
   • 1904, B. M. Bower, "The Lamb" in The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories:

     "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?"

   • 1910, William MacLeod Raine, A Texas Ranger, ch. 3:

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

   • 1958 July 21, "Foreign Relations: Back from Russia," Time:

     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."

   • 2011 Jan. 17, Paul Andersen, "Cultural necrophilia," Aspen Times (USA) (retrieved 30 June 2011):

     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.