Where does blackmail come from?

The first records of blackmail come from the 1500s. Black is used in the sense of “bad” or “evil.” Mail doesn’t refer to the letters that we send through the post office but instead to another sense of the word meaning “payment” or “tax,” from the Old English māl, meaning “agreement.” In the original sense of blackmail, it was a forced agreement. In the 1500s, Scottish chieftains engaged in a protection racket in which they’d force farmers in Scotland and northern England to pay for protection against plunder. (Nowadays, we’d probably call this kind of scheme extortion.) It wasn’t until a few hundred years later that blackmail came to be used in its current, more general sense.

Most commonly, blackmail refers to the act of threatening to reveal a secret that will ruin someone’s reputation unless they pay or submit to other demands. It’s especially associated with public figures such as politicians and celebrities, who are often the target of such blackmail attempts. But blackmail can happen in different ways and on different scales. Emotional blackmail refers to actions like withholding affection to get something desired. Nuclear blackmail refers to a nation threatening to use its nuclear weapons in order to influence the actions of another country.

What’s the difference between blackmail and extortion?

The two words can be used interchangeably. Extortion, though, is often used more broadly, and often refers to coercion through threats of violence or the abuse of one’s authority.