BLACKMAIL

Blackmail

Blackmail is an act, often a crime, involving unjustified threats to make a gain or cause loss to another unless a demand is met. It may be defined as coercion involving threats of physical harm, threat of criminal prosecution, or threats for the purposes of taking the person's money or property. It is the name of a statutory offence in the United States of America, England and Wales, Northern Ireland, and Victoria, Australia, and has been used as a convenient way of referring to other offences, but was not a term of art in English law before 1968. It originally meant payments rendered by settlers in the Counties of England bordering Scotland to chieftains and the ...

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blackmail

Noun

  1. A certain rate of money, corn, cattle, or other thing, anciently paid, in the north of England and south of Scotland, to certain men who were allied to robbers, or moss troopers, to be by them protected from pillage.
  2. Payment of money exacted by means of intimidation; also, extortion of money from a person by threats of public accusation, exposure, or censure.
    to levy blackmail
    to extort money by threats, as of injury to one's reputation
  3. Black rent, or rent paid in corn, flesh, or the lowest coin, as opposed to white rent, which paid in silver.

Verb

  1. To extort money from by exciting fears of injury other than bodily harm, such as injury to reputation, distress of mind, false accusation, etc.; as, to blackmail a merchant by threatening to expose an alleged fraud.


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: blackmail
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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