Linch

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. To draw back or recoil suddenly, as from something painful or alarming
2. To shrink away or wince in response to discomfort, fear, or an unwelcome stimulus
3. To retreat or pull back abruptly from something difficult or unpleasant

Etymology: The word "linch" survives mainly as a dialect and archaic term for a steep bank or ridge, and its history runs back to a plain Old English word for a hill. Old English "hlinċ" meant a hill or rise of land, and in Middle English it was spelled "linche." Over time the sense narrowed to a ridge or sloping bank, the kind of raised ground that marks the edge of a field or a stretch of rising pasture. Because "linch" and "lynch" may both descend from the same Old English source, they are usually treated as a doublet, two words that split from one root and then took different paths into modern English. The sharper, more familiar "lynch" moved into the sense of summary punishment, while "linch" stayed close to the landscape it first named.