Boycott -- In 1880, Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott was land agent in
County Mayo, Ireland, for an absentee owner, the Earl of Erne. Though
the harvest had been disastrous, Captain Boycott refused to reduce rents
and attempted to evict any tenants who could not pay in full. As a
result, he became the object of the earliest known effort to force an
alteration of policy by concerted nonintercourse. His servants departed
en masse. No one would sell him food. Life became so miserable for him
that at last he gave up and returned to England. To boycott is "to
combine in abstaining from, or preventing dealings with, as a means of
intimidation or coercion."
-- Willard R. Espy, "O Thou Improper, Thou Uncommon Noun"
