1. blackmail - Noun
2. blackmail - Verb
A certain rate of money, corn, cattle, or other thing, anciently paid, in the north of England and south of Scotland, to certain men who were allied to robbers, or moss troopers, to be by them protected from pillage.
Payment of money exacted by means of intimidation; also, extortion of money from a person by threats of public accusation, exposure, or censure.
Black rent, or rent paid in corn, flesh, or the lowest coin, a opposed to "white rent", which paid in silver.
To extort money from by exciting fears of injury other than bodily harm, as injury to reputation, distress of mind, etc.; as, to blackmail a merchant by threatening to expose an alleged fraud.
Source: Webster's dictionaryBlackmail is more effective than bribery. John le Carré
Friendship is mutual blackmail elevated to the level of love. Robin Morgan
Socialism is a fraud, a comedy, a phantom, a blackmail. Benito Mussolini
Every conceivable cruel method of blackmail was used against me to obtain by force and at all costs confessions and statements both about comrades who had been arrested, and about political activities. Ernst Thälmann
If this is an attempt by voters to blackmail the government, to compromise on important issues or principles, then we must show them we cannot be blackmailed. No government should succumb to blackmail. Sinnathamby Rajaratnam
Imperialism is a system of exploitation that occurs not only in the brutal form of those who come with guns to conquer territory. Imperialism often occurs in more subtle forms, a loan, food aid, blackmail. We are fighting this system that allows a handful of men on Earth to rule all of humanity. Thomas Sankara