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Definition of blackmail : 1. 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.
2. Black rent, or rent paid in corn, flesh, or the lowest coin, a opposed to white rent, which paid in silver.
3. Payment of money exacted by means of intimidation; also, extortion of money from a person by threats of public accusation, exposure, or censure.
4. To extort money from by exciting fears of injury other than bodily harm, as injury to reputation, distress of mind, etc.; as, to blackmail a merchant by threatening to expose an alleged fraud.

Synonyms:

squeeze, coerce, bribe, blackjack, pressure, protection, force, hale, shakedown

defraud, haul, grab, palm, embezzle, burglarize, lift, swipe, pilfer, mug, plagiarize, stickup, fleece, loot, extort, heist, rustle, nip, rob, filch, poach, abstract, pirate, pocket, shoplift, swindle, steal, cop, plunder, shanghai, hijack, holdup

plagiarism, robbery, abstraction, burglary, pilferage, banditry, piracy, larceny, embezzlement, stealing, extortion, theft, thievery, shoplifting

Usage examples:

• " You went there with Harry Goldenburg, your husband, in connection with a scheme of blackmail he had conceived. - "The Grell Mystery", Frank Froest.
• This seems to me to be almost powerless as a moral force, and indeed, to encourage the hideous apparatus of blackmail. - "An Outline of Sexual Morality", Kenneth Ingram.
• Does one prefer that species which, in the words of the late Speaker Reed, manifests itself in " staying bought," or that species which flowers in legislative blackmail? - "John Marshall and the Constitution A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The Chronicles Of America Series", Edward S. Corwin.