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Blackmailed vs Extort - What's the difference?

blackmailed | extort |

As verbs the difference between blackmailed and extort

is that blackmailed is past tense of blackmail while extort is to wrest from an unwilling person by physical force, menace, duress, torture, or any undue or illegal exercise of power or ingenuity; to wrench away (from); to tear away; to wring (from); to exact; as, to extort contributions from the vanquished; to extort confessions of guilt; to extort a promise; to extort payment of a debt.

blackmailed

English

Verb

(head)
  • (blackmail)

  • blackmail

    Noun

    (-)
  • (archaic) A certain rate of money, corn, cattle, or other thing, anciently paid, in the north of England and south of Scotland, to certain men who were allied to robbers, or moss troopers, to be by them protected from pillage.
  • Payment of money exacted by means of intimidation; also, extortion of money from a person by threats of public accusation, exposure, or censure.
  • to levy blackmail
  • :: to extort money by threats, as of injury to one's reputation
  • (English law) Black rent, or rent paid in corn, meat, or the lowest coin, as opposed to white rent, which paid in silver.
  • Derived terms

    * emotional blackmail

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To extort money or favors from (a person) by exciting fears of injury other than bodily harm, such as injury to reputation, distress of mind, false accusation, etc.; as, to blackmail a merchant by threatening to expose an alleged fraud.
  • See also

    * extortion * protection racket ----

    extort

    English

    (Webster 1913)

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To wrest from an unwilling person by physical force, menace, duress, torture, or any undue or illegal exercise of power or ingenuity; to wrench away (from); to tear away; to wring (from); to exact; as, to extort contributions from the vanquished; to extort confessions of guilt; to extort a promise; to extort payment of a debt.
  • (legal) To obtain by means of the offense of extortion.
  • (transitive, and, intransitive, medicine, ophthalmology) To twist outwards.
  • Derived terms

    * extortion * extortionate * extortionist

    See also

    * intort