- an unauthorized committee of citizens organized for the maintenance of order and the summary punishment of crime in the absence of regular or efficient courts.
- (in the South) an organization of citizens using extralegal means to control or intimidate Black people and abolitionists and, during the Civil War, to suppress Union loyalists.
- (in the US) a self-appointed body of citizens organized to maintain order, punish crime, etc, where an efficient system of courts does not exist
