Boycott

To boycott means to avoid or not to deal with a person, institution, event or nation, as a form of protest. For example, one might boycott a store by not shopping there. The word derives from that of Captain Boycott, a land agent for an absentee landlord in nineteenth-century Ireland, who was declared persona non grata by local people in revenge for his harshness in evicting impoverished tenants.

In 1980, many democratic nations boycotted the Olympic Games in Moscow to protest against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.