- skip - Brewer’s

Black Mail

.

Money given to free-booters by way of exempting property from depredation. (Anglo-Saxon, mal, “rent-tax;” French, maille, an old coin worth 083 farthing). Grass mail was rent paid for pasturage. Mails and duties (Scotch) are rents of an estate in money or otherwise. “Black” in this phrase does not mean wicked or wrongful, but is the Gaelic, to cherish or protect. Black mail was a rent paid to Free Companies for protecting the property paid for, from the depredations of freebooters, etc.

1

To levy black mail now means to exact exorbitant charges; thus the cabs and omnibuses during the Great Exhibition years “levied black mail” on the public.

 

previous entry · index · next entry

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

previous entry · index · next entry

Black Hole of Calcutta
Black Horse
Black Jack
Black Jack (A)
Black Joke
Black Leg
Black Letter
Black Letter Day
Black Lists
Black Looks
Black Mail
Black Man (The)
Black Maria
Black Monday
Black Money
Black Ox
Black Parliament
Black Prince
Black Republicans
Black Rod
Black Rood of Sootland