Boycotting

/bɔɪˈkɒtɪŋ/ verb

Definition

Refusing to buy from, use, or support a company or person as a way to protest against something they've done.

Etymology

From Charles Boycott, an Irish land agent in the 1880s whose tenants refused to work for him during a rent dispute. The practice became so common it entered English as a general term for organized refusal.

Kelly Says

Charles Boycott's name became immortal because his unpopularity was so extreme that people literally stopped talking to him—his name became the word for what they were doing to him, one of the few people in history to become a verb!

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