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boycott

UK/ˈbɔɪkɒt/US/ˈbɔɪkɑt/
nounB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #8,413 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: boycotts

A boycott is a refusal to deal with somebody as a protest. Organise a boycott.

It works by being collective, since one person refusing is simply a customer lost. The word is one of the few in English taken straight from a real person's surname.

Dave Hogg from Royal Oak, MI, USA · CC BY 2.0

Definitions of boycott

  1. 1nounboycottA refusal to deal with somebody as a protest.B2+

    “The boycott lasted eleven months and closed two of the shops.”

boycott is a protest.

Where it comes from

From Charles Boycott, a land agent in Ireland whose neighbours refused all dealings with him in 1880.

From Charles Boycott, an English evicting land agent in Ireland who was subject to a boycott organized by the Irish Land League in 1880. For the surname see Boycott.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

boycott in the wild

  • The Montgomery bus boycott was a political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama.

    Montgomery bus boycott

  • The United States led a boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics, held in Moscow, to protest against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

    1980 Summer Olympics boycott

  • More than 60 countries joined the boycott to varying degrees, affecting athletes, fans, and international relations.

    1980 Summer Olympics boycott

  • The boycotts were part of a larger international campaign of "isolation" that eventually included political, economic, cultural and sports boycotts.

    Academic boycott of South Africa

  • The academic boycotts ended in 1990, when its stated goal of ending apartheid was achieved.

    Academic boycott of South Africa

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.