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Osʹtracisʹm

Oyster-shelling, blackballing, or expelling. Clisʹthenēs gave the people of Attica the power of removing from the state, without making a definite charge, any leader of the people likely to subvert the government. Each citizen wrote his vote on an earthenware table (ostracon), whence the term.

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

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Osʹtracisʹm

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