Boycott

an organized movement to ruin a person by refusing to do business with him. The term came into use during the Irish land agitations of 1880 and subsequent years. Capt. James Boycott, agent for an absentee landlord, evicted many tenants and made himself otherwise obnoxious. Testimony before Parliament showed that he was amply punished by being cut. That is to say, the Irish agreed among themselves to have nothing to do with him, either in a social or a business way. The term caught the newspaper writer and is now a word in good repute throughout the English speaking world. When, for instance, a labor organization passes out word not to deal with a certain tradesman, or not to buy a certain brand of goods, it is said to declare a boycott.

Boycotting was not only used to punish evicting landlords and agents, tenants guilty of paying rent, and tradesmen who ventured to hold dealings with those against whom the Land League had pronounced its anathema; but the League was now strong enough to use this means as an instrument of extending its organization and filling its coffers. Shopkeepers who refused to join and subscribe received reason to believe that they would be deprived of their custom; recalcitrant farmers found themselves without a market for their crops and cattle.--Annual Register. 1880.