Word of the Day

: August 11, 2023

boycott

verb BOY-kaht

What It Means

To boycott something is to refuse to buy, use, or participate in that thing as a form of protest. To boycott an entity, such as a company or country, is to stop using the goods or services of that entity until changes are made.

// People are boycotting the company for its refusal to reduce its yearly greenhouse gas emissions.

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boycott in Context

"Over 100 music artists, including Tom Morello and Zack de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine, have banded together to announce they are boycotting concert venues that use facial recognition technology, according to a Rolling Stone report on Thursday. The artists cite a number of concerns, including privacy infringement and increased discrimination." — Lawrence Bonk, Engadget.com, 22 June 2023

Did You Know?

In the 1870s, Irish farmers faced an agricultural crisis that threatened to result in a repeat of the terrible famine and mass evictions of the 1840s. Anticipating financial ruin, they formed a Land League to campaign against the rent increases and evictions landlords were imposing as a result of the crisis. When retired British army captain Charles Boycott, acting as an agent for an absentee landlord, tried to evict tenant farmers for refusing to pay their rent, he was ostracized by the League and community. His laborers and servants quit, and the crops in his care began to rot. Boycott’s fate was soon well known, and his name became a byword for that particular protest strategy, both as a verb and as a noun. Across the Atlantic three-quarters of a century later, boycotts such as the Montgomery bus boycott were pivotal components of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States.