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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Charles Boycott
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(1832–97) English agent, on the Irish estate of the earl of Erne, whose name entered the language after an incident in 1880. Bad harvests in 1879 led to a demand by tenants for their rents to be reduced; Boycott responded by serving eviction notices; *Parnell then proposed, as a policy for similar cases throughout Ireland, that tenants should refuse to communicate in any way with those trying to evict them. The impasse on the Erne estate was the first to attract wide attention; and since the tenants' action was new, requiring a new word, Boycott's name was immediately and widely used to describe the isolation of someone by the removal of all contact.
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