blackmail
noun
any payment extorted by intimidation, as by threats of injurious revelations or accusations.
had blackmailed
-
past perfectof blackmail.past perfect
Used to express a completed action that took place before another specific past action occurred.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Citing the abuses of Hoover’s forty-eight-year tenure—including reports that he had blackmailed Presidents and members of Congress—directors were barred from serving more than a single ten-year term.
From The New Yorker ● Oct. 12, 2018
But on that night’s newscast, a St. Louis television station publicized Mr. Greitens’s affair and reported accusations that he had blackmailed the woman.
From New York Times ● Jan. 26, 2018
Watergate burglary overseer Howard Hunt was set to appear Monday afternoon before the Watergate grand jury; he had blackmailed the White House by threatening to reveal “seamy stories,” and he knew several.
From Salon ● Jul. 15, 2015
These were Manilius and Julius, and moreover Sulpicius Arrhenianus, who had blackmailed, among others, Bassus, the son of Pomponius, whose lieutenant he had been when Bassus was governor of Moesia.
From Dio's Rome, Volume 6 An Historical Narrative Originally Composed in Greek During The Reigns of Septimius Severus, Geta and Caracalla, Macrinus, Elagabalus And Alexander Severus by Herbert Baldwin Foster
Trimmer, waxing greedy through the ease with which he had blackmailed McCoppet, had developed a cunning of his own.
From The Furnace of Gold by J. N. Marchand
