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vigilante|vɪdʒɪˈlæntɪ, vɪdʒɪˈlɑːnteɪ|
[a. Sp. vigilante vigilant a.]
1. orig. U.S. A member of a vigilance committee. Also transf. and attrib.
1856C. Nordhoff Man-of-War Life xv. 255 The second day after the expiration of their liberty, notice was given the vigilantes, ashore, that five dollars reward would be paid for every man of the crew rendered on board. 1865A. D. Richardson Beyond Mississippi (1867) 487 The power [in Montana] is vested in the ‘Vigilantes’, a secret tribunal of citizens, organized before civil laws were framed. 1883Cent. Mag. XXIX. 194/2 An old-time Virginia City vigilante. 1888Pall Mall G. 4 Sept. 7/2 Forty well-armed vigilantes surrounded the camp and sent in a committee..to demand the surrender of the thieves. 1890N. P. Langford Vigilante Days i. xiv. 181 In the name of Vigilante justice [some men] committed crimes which..were wholly indefensible. 1918G. Frankau One of Them xxiv. 185 Shall Muses condescend to gutter-trilling; Or Pegasus, whose tail the strap⁓hitched star tickles, Feed like a cow-hocked yellow Rosinante In Grecian mangers of a Vigilante? 1939Joyce Finnegans Wake 78 What vigilantes and ridings then. 1948Daily Tel. 22 May 3/6 The Advertising Association is asking 24 advertising clubs..to form a ‘vigilantes’ committee to report cases of advertising..of a doubtful..nature. 1959Times 22 Oct. 8/2 An appeal by Nottingham ‘vigilantes’—a group of businessmen—for an inquiry into the city's Labour-controlled administration has been rejected. 1980Sunday Times 24 Aug. 2/3 But the critical officers say that if normal police cover is continually reduced..there is a danger..that could lead to highly undesirable vigilante activity. 1984S. Townsend Growing Pains A. Mole 42, I offered to set up a vigilante group but my father said that anyone who has carried an old mattress 300 yards in the dark is not going to be put off dumping it by a gaggle of spotty schoolboys.
2. A night-watchman.
1899F. T. Bullen Log Sea-waif 78 We..found a big jug of water, which Zeke carefully poured upon the head of the muttering vigilante.
Hence vigiˈlantism (orig. U.S.), the principles or activities of vigilantes or vigilance committees.
1937Sun (Baltimore) 27 Sept. 2/7 A public investigation of ‘vigilantism’ in strike areas was announced today through the American League Against War and Fascism. 1942W. Stegner Mormon Country 96 Perhaps even those incidents were purely unofficial and spontaneous acts of devout Mormons, the Mormon equivalent of lynch law and vigilantism. 1953Economist 19 Sept. 775/3 In the United States, neither private vigilantism nor the government seems prepared to treat a favourable verdict as final. 1979Times 6 Dec. 3/1 Africa was confronted, he said, with a choice between a system of collective security and a system of international vigilantism. 1985Listener 10 Jan. 9/1 The one genuine, spontaneous popular institution in the West was vigilantism. |