blackmail

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   the crime or practice of demanding money or compliance by threatening to reveal a secret or damaging information

   The prosecutor charged him with blackmail after he demanded payment for keeping the documents private.

2. 2
   verb

   to force someone to pay money or take an action by making such a threat

   The group tried to blackmail the minister into changing her vote.

3. 3
   noun

   coercive pressure backed by a threat to cause harm or withdraw something vital, especially in political or economic bargaining

   The cartel's threat to halt fuel deliveries was denounced as economic blackmail.

From black plus obsolete mail, 'rent or tribute.' In the sixteenth-century Scottish Borders, blackmail was protection money exacted from farmers under threat of raids. By the nineteenth century the word had broadened to extortion by intimidation, especially a threat of exposure.

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