Cite as: 509 U. S. 764 (1993)
Opinion of the Court
it, not to allow any one else to have anything to do with him. . . . [T]he awful sentence of excommunication could hardly have rendered him more helplessly alone for a time. No one would work for him; no one would supply him with food." Id., at 108-109; see also H. Laidler, Boycotts and the Labor Struggle 23-27 (1968). Thus, the verb made from the unfortunate Captain's name has had from the outset the meaning it continues to carry today. To "boycott" means "[t]o combine in refusing to hold relations of any kind, social or commercial, public or private, with (a neighbour), on account of political or other differences, so as to punish him for the position he has taken up, or coerce him into abandoning it." 2 Oxford English Dictionary 468 (2d ed. 1989).
Petitioners have suggested that a boycott ordinarily requires "an absolute refusal to deal on any terms," which was concededly not the case here. Brief for Petitioners in No. 91-1111, p. 31; see also Reply Brief for Petitioners in No. 91-1111, pp. 12-13. We think not. As the definition just recited provides, the refusal may be imposed "to punish [the target] for the position he has taken up, or coerce him into abandoning it." The refusal to deal may, in other words, be conditional, offering its target the incentive of renewed dealing if and when he mends his ways. This is often the case—and indeed seems to have been the case with the original Boycott boycott. Cf. McCarthy, supra, at 109 (noting that the Captain later lived "at peace" with his neighbors). Furthermore, other dictionary definitions extend the term to include a partial boycott—a refusal to engage in some, but not all, transactions with the target. See Webster's New International Dictionary 321 (2d ed. 1950) (defining "boycott" as "to withhold, wholly or in part, social or business intercourse from, as an expression of disapproval or means of coercion" (emphasis added)).
It is, however, important—and crucial in the present cases—to distinguish between a conditional boycott and a concerted agreement to seek particular terms in particular
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