necklace, noun

Origin:
EnglishShow more Figurative and transferred use of general English necklace jewellery worn around the neck.
Often the necklace: a. A tyre doused or filled with petrol, placed round a person’s shoulders or neck, and set alight. b. This method of lynching or unofficial execution; see also necklacing. Also attributive.
1985 Weekly Mail 16 Aug. 5The cry went up: ‘The necklace! The necklace!’ A tyre was draped around his neck, doused with petrol and set alight.
1985 Setuke & Badela in City Press 18 Aug. 4The ‘necklace’ was there at Mxenge’s funeral..for those who didn’t ‘belong’.
1985 Sunday Times 27 Oct. 19In township patois the ‘necklace’ is the death sentence whereby people are doused in petrol and a tyre is placed round the neck.
1986 E. Prov. Herald 28 Oct. 2Three counts of murder by ‘necklace’.
1987 M. Benson At Still Point (1988) (Virago ed.) 245A horrifying element through the years has been the role of impimpis — informers. Their betrayals..caused excruciating suffering and not surprisingly it was in the Eastern Cape that revenge by the gruesome ‘necklace’ first occurred.
1989 N. Mathiane in Frontline Mar. 8Many people at that time still perceived the necklace as a symbol of the struggle.
1989 E. Prov. Herald 15 May 4The ‘necklace’ — the term has become one of those uniquely South African words, like veld or kraal, which mark us as different from the rest of mankind — was in use for a long time before it surfaced in print.
1989 Reader’s Digest Illust. Hist. of S. Afr. 480The ‘necklace’ was..forced over the victim’s head and shoulders, trapping his arms against his side. It was then set alight.
1990 Frontline Jan. 14Strikes and stay-aways increase. So do bombs and necklaces.
1990 D. Capel in Personality 21 May 16People who have taken part in things like necklace murders often later express incredulity at their actions.
1991 T. Molefe in Race Rel. News (S.A.I.R.R.) Vol.53 No.1, 18We were tried, found guilty and sentenced to death by necklace — to be executed on the spot.
1994 R. Malan in Style May 37The disgust I once felt about the suppression of the ANC had long since been subsumed by the spectacle of thugs in ANC T-shirts terrorising anyone who disagreed with them, my rage over Steve Biko’s murder obliterated by the horror of the necklace.
A tyre doused or filled with petrol, placed round a person’s shoulders or neck, and set alight.
This method of lynching or unofficial execution; see also necklacing. Also attributive.
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English
NECC, nounn.necklace, verb transitivev.
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