[a. F. chantage ‘action de faire chanter quelqu’un, c’est-à-dire de lui extorquer de l’argent en le menaçant de révéler quelque chose de scandaleux, ou de le diffamer, etc. (Littré).]
A mode of extorting money by threatening to make scandalous revelations or statements.
1874. Mahaffy, Soc. Life Greece, xii. 367. Who extorted money from rich and quiet people by a sort of chantage.
1882. Sat. Rev., 5 Aug., 176/2. It is easy to see how from literary body-snatching a short step might be made in the present state of the law on those matters to literary chantage.
1883. World, 12 Sept., 8 (Social Chantage). Chantage, blackmail or by whatever name the levying of pay, in one shape or another, out of the fear of the payer, is called.
1884. Law Times, 29 Nov., 77/2. No one proposes that the laws which protect women from insult and outrage should be relaxed because they may be abused for the purpose of chantage.
