What does boycotting mean?
To boycott is to refuse to buy, use, handle, or take part in something as a deliberate act of protest or pressure. The word functions both as a verb — whose -ing form, boycotting, describes the ongoing act of such a refusal — and as a gerund naming the practice itself. Boycotting can target companies over unethical practices, products over their origins, elections deemed illegitimate, or even individuals through social ostracism. It carries a strongly moral connotation, implying principled collective action rather than simple avoidance, and it sits at the heart of consumer activism, political dissent, and historical movements from the Irish Land League to civil rights struggles. Unusually among English words, "boycott" derives from the name of a real person: Charles Cunningham Boycott, an English land agent ostracized by Irish tenants in 1880, whose surname became synonymous with coordinated refusal. Today the word is standard in British and American English alike, appearing constantly in news reporting on protests, trade disputes, and campaigns.
Refusing to buy, use, or deal with something, or abstaining from participation in an event, as an act of protest or pressure.
"Shoppers are boycotting the supermarket chain over its treatment of suppliers."
The act or practice of refusing to buy, use, or participate in something as protest.
"Their boycotting of the conference drew international attention."
"Boycott" is one of the few English words named after an actual person — an English land agent so widely shunned by his Irish neighbours in 1880 that his surname became a verb.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of boycotting
The word derives directly from the name of Charles Cunningham Boycott, an English land agent in County Mayo, Ireland, who was subjected to a campaign of total social and economic ostracism by the Irish Land League in 1880 after refusing to lower rents. His treatment was reported widely in the press, and within months his surname had entered English as a verb meaning to withhold dealings in this way. It is thus a true eponym, coined in English during the late nineteenth century, and it spread quickly into many other languages. There are no true cognates in other languages, though parallel terms like French "embargo" express related ideas of withholding.
Related word forms
How boycotting is actually used
Register-neutral; used in journalism, politics, and everyday speech. Often appears with prepositions like "of" (a boycott of goods) when nominal. Carries connotations of principled collective protest rather than mere avoidance.
Easily confused with boycotting
An embargo is an official government prohibition on trade, whereas boycotting is an unofficial refusal to engage, typically organized by consumers, groups, or individuals.