to combine in abstaining from, or preventing dealings with, as a means of intimidation or coercion.
to boycott a store.
to abstain from buying or using.
to boycott foreign products.
the practice of boycotting.
an instance of boycotting.
After Charles C. Boycott (1832–97), English estate manager in Ireland, against whom nonviolent coercive tactics were used in 1880
To boycott means to stop buying or using the goods or services of a certain company or country as a protest; the noun boycott is the protest itself. This noun comes from the name of Charles C. Boycott, an English land agent in 19th-century Ireland who refused to reduce rents for his tenant farmers. As a result, the local residents did not want to have any dealings with him. Boycotts are an effective way to use your spending dollars to effect change.
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Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Day laborers were largely split on a potential boycott.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 26, 2026
A boycott could harm day laborers who rely on customers to hire them for manual labor jobs.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 26, 2026
The stone structure has spawned tense hearings, lawsuits, countersuits, investigations and a boycott.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 8, 2026
Tajani has said he will go "with my head held high", and allies of the prime minister now suggest the boycott talk has cooled into a quieter "everyone's free to do as they please".
From BBC ● Jun. 26, 2026
And with that—after several years of struggle—the last serious American effort to boycott the Berlin Olympics was effectively dead.
From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown
They held signs that read “Protect our workers” and “Defend day labor centers! Boycott Home Depot.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 6, 2026
According to Belafonte, they arranged a meeting in the basement of Abyssinian Baptist Church, where King told him he was almost out of money to fund the Montgomery Bus Boycott and asked for help.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 31, 2026
"But it doesn't help our chances of success if Ben Stokes keeps encouraging our batsmen to attack, attack with one finger hovering over the self-destruct button," Boycott wrote in his Daily Telegraph column.
From Barron's ● Dec. 1, 2025
As a young man, he played for Barnsley Cricket Club alongside Boycott and the journalist and broadcaster Sir Michael Parkinson.
From BBC ● Oct. 19, 2025
“Worse. Boycott the site and make us fall to the second page on search engines. Nobody clicks on the second page.”
From "The Manifestor Prophecy" by Angie Thomas
The Bezos’ involvement was met with boycotts and protests.
From Salon ● May 6, 2026
Turner created the Goodwill Games in the 1980s as part of an effort to ease international tensions during the Cold War, amid Olympic boycotts led by the United States and Soviet Union.
From Barron's ● May 6, 2026
Over the next decade, rebellious colonists used ads to spread the word about boycotts on British products.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 15, 2026
As a prominent labour organiser, Chavez helped lead a major strike against Delano grape growers in the 1960s, which sparked boycotts across the country, in order to gain better wages and conditions for workers.
From BBC ● Mar. 30, 2026
As the angry American objections turned into boycotts of British imports like paper and tea, a famous Englishman named Dr. Samuel Johnson wrote a short pamphlet called Taxation No Tyranny.
From "In the Shadow of Liberty" by Kenneth C. Davis
Some Italians joke the country boycotted the tournaments in Russia, Qatar and the U.S. on principle.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 4, 2026
Senegal's National Assembly elected ousted prime minister Ousmane Sonko as its speaker Tuesday in a vote boycotted by the opposition, following months of tension that culminated in the firebrand's sacking.
From Barron's ● May 26, 2026
Austria later boycotted Eurovision in 1969 when it was hosted by Spain, then under the rule of dictator Francisco Franco.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 16, 2026
In 1975 Greece boycotted because of Turkey's invasion of Cyprus, and the following year Turkey didn't take part.
From BBC ● May 10, 2026
Black people had boycotted the city bus system there for an entire year, and the Supreme Court had ruled that segregation on public buses was unconstitutional, forcing the city to change its laws.
From "Reaching for the Moon" by Katherine Johnson
The amounts aren’t punitive, but they essentially function as a tax-code tariff on doing business in the boycotting country.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 19, 2026
Ukrainian athletes are boycotting the Paralympics opening ceremony, along with officials from Finland, Poland, Latvia, Estonia and Czechia.
From BBC ● Mar. 4, 2026
Rep. Veronica Escobar is boycotting the main event in favor of the People’s State of the Union.
From Slate ● Feb. 24, 2026
That match took place amid fan protests with the team being whistled at the Stade Velodrome and supporters behind the goals boycotting the opening 15 minutes of the encounter.
From Barron's ● Feb. 15, 2026
In the United States, talk of boycotting the 1936 Olympics had been simmering since the Nazis had come to power in 1933.
From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
