string up

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

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Verb

string up (third-person singular simple present strings up, present participle stringing up, simple past and past participle strung up)

1. (transitive, idiomatic) To kill (a person) by hanging, especially to lynch.

   Synonyms: hang, scrag; see also Thesaurus:kill by hanging

   • 1911, Fergus Hume, chapter 8, in Red Money:

     I'd string up the whole lot if I had my way, Silver. Poachers and blackguards every one of them.

   • 2003 February 17, J. Barry, E. Thomas, “Boots, Bytes and Bombs”, in Newsweek:

     After years of brutal repression, any member of Saddam's palace guard stands to be strung up from the nearest lamppost by a vengeful Iraqi populace.

2. (intransitive, idiomatic, obsolete) To die by hanging.

   Synonyms: hang, swing; see also Thesaurus:die by hanging

   • 1818, Sir Walter Scott, chapter 13, in Rob Roy:

     "And now, my friend," said the Captain, "let us understand each other. You have confessed yourself a spy, and should string up to the next tree."

3. (transitive, idiomatic) To suspend by means of rope, cord or similar material.
   • 2007 March 7, Brigid Schulte, “Escaping a Painful Past To Find a Shaky Future”, in Washington Post, retrieved 24 Jan. 2009:

     He has scars on his ankles, feet and hands from where they strung him up with ropes and beat him.

4. (transitive, idiomatic) To concatenate; to link in a line.

   to string up a sentence

References

• “string up”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

Anagrams

• spurting