A boycott is an act of voluntary and intentional abstention from using, buying, or dealing with a person, organization, or country as an expression of protest, usually for moral, social, political, or environmental reasons. The purpose of a boycott is to inflict some economic loss on the target, or to indicate a moral outrage, to try to compel the target to alter an objectionable behavior.
The word boycott entered the English language during the Irish "Land War" and derives from Captain Charles Boycott, the land agent of an absentee landlord, Lord Erne, who lived in Lough Mask House, near Ballinrobe in County Mayo, Ireland, who was subject to social ostracism organized by the Irish Land League in 1880.
In 1888, the word found its way into the New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, which we more commonly refer to as the Oxford English Dictionary . It spread throughout other European languages and made its way to America, when Boycott tried and failed to visit friends in Virginia using the name Charles Cunningham. The newspapers exposed him and published his whole story, and the word "boycott" became part of our American English language.