英语词汇blackmail的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

blackmail. Sixteenth-century Scottish farmers paid their rent, or mail, to English absentee landlords in the form of white mail, silver money, or black mail, rent in the form of produce or livestock. The term black mail took on a bad connotation only when greedy landlords forced cashless tenants to pay much more in goods than they would have paid in silver. Later, when freebooters along the border demanded payment for free pas- sage and “protection,” the poor farmers called this illegal extor- tion blackmail, too.

词汇	blackmail
词源	blackmail. Sixteenth-century Scottish farmers paid their rent, or mail, to English absentee landlords in the form of white mail, silver money, or black mail, rent in the form of produce or livestock. The term black mail took on a bad connotation only when greedy landlords forced cashless tenants to pay much more in goods than they would have paid in silver. Later, when freebooters along the border demanded payment for free pas- sage and “protection,” the poor farmers called this illegal extor- tion blackmail, too.
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