Blackmail

1. n. Black rent, or rent paid in corn, flesh, or the lowest coin, a opposed to “white rent”, which paid in silver.
2. n. 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.
3. n. Payment of money exacted by means of intimidation; also, extortion of money from a person by threats of public accusation, exposure, or censure.

The word meanings were obtained from OPTED(The Online Plain Text English Dictionary), which is based on “The Project Gutenberg Etext of Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary” which is in turn based on the 1913 US Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary (See Project Gutenburg), as a text file.