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boycott

verbnounattested in dialogue

  • United Kingdom//ˈbɔɪkɒt//
  • United States//ˈbɔɪkɑt//

To abstain, either as an individual or a group, from using, buying, or dealing with someone or some organization as an expression of protest.

verb

  1. 1

    To abstain, either as an individual or a group, from using, buying, or dealing with someone or some organization as an expression of protest.

    There is probably not a citizen in the United States who wears a hat that has not heard of John Stetson, and does not know that the Stetson hat is one of if not the best made. For some cause the Knights [of Labor] have boycotted the Stetson hats, and have notified all dealers that if they sell them they also will be boycotted.

    Unbowed after two years in jail, nine of the defendants boycotted the trial, refusing even to talk to their lawyers.

    But even if you weren't boycotting the film on the basis of its disgraceful necrobestiality theme, boycotting it on the basis of its vampires is reason enough.

    Omar has challenged Elliott Abrams’s record in Latin America, taken a firm line against Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, and advocated for—wait for it—the two-state solution for Israel and Palestine (even though the headlines have focused on her expressing support for the right to boycott as a tactic).

Etymology

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.

noun

  1. 1

    The act of boycotting.

    [W]hat has been the actual effects of the [UFW grape] boycott? As far as one can judge, it has cut down on the grape sales in a few big city outlets. But going into its second year, the boycott is losing steam. The middle class doesn't care.

    UFW and Chile solidarity boycotts of grapes had very little contact with one another, despite the extensive connections between California and Chilean fruit industries.

Forms

plural
boycotts
past tense
boycotted
past participle
boycotted
present participle
boycotting
third person singular
boycotts
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).