The term comes from Charles Boycott, a British land agent in Ireland during the late 19th century. Boycott worked for an English landlord and became quite unpopular among the local Irish community because he attempted to evict tenants who couldn’t pay their rent. This happened during a time of great tension between Irish tenant farmers and English landlords, with widespread calls for tenants’ rights and fairer land ownership laws.

In response to Boycott’s eviction efforts, the Irish Land League, an organization advocating for tenant farmers, decided to take action by isolating him. Rather than using violence, they encouraged the entire community to refuse to work for him, provide services, sell goods, or even speak to him. The plan was effective: Boycott found himself completely shunned and unable to continue his work in Ireland. Newspapers soon began to refer to this organized ostracism as a “boycott,” and the term quickly spread in popular use to describe collective refusal to engage with a person, business, or organization.

Today, “boycott” is used worldwide to describe a form of protest in which people stop supporting or participating in something they disagree with, following in the footsteps of the Irish villagers who made Charles Boycott the first subject of a modern boycott.