The Word “Blackmail” Has Nothing to Do With Mail

Note: This is an excerpt from my forthcoming book Words from Hell: Unearthing the darkest secrets of English etymology (Chambers, 2023).

Here’s a mindbending etymology fact for you: The word “blackmail” originally had nothing to do with mail as in letters, or for that matter, anything else we’d call mail today.

In the 1500s and extending through the mid-1800s, clan chieftains and other officials in Scotland and northern England were known to run protection rackets against farmers. The practice was called blackmail, with the “black” part referring to the evilness of it.

As for the mail part, in Middle English male meant “rent” or “tribute.” It is from the Old English mal meaning “agreement,” a term originally adopted from Old Norse. So “blackmail” essentially means “evil rent” or “evil tribute.”

This type of “mail” is not at all related to the words “mail” as in letters, “mail” as in armor, or “male” as in gender. (It’s also unrelated to the Latin-derived element mal- “bad.”) The postage type of mail is from the Frankish-derived, Old French male, meaning “wallet, bag or bundle.” “Mail(le)” armor is originally from the Latin macula, meaning “mesh,” comparing the links in the armor to a net. “Male” as in gender is from the Latin Latin masculus (see: male and female).

All of these words first appeared English several centuries after the “mail” that’s in “blackmail.”

However, the mail in blackmail is related to the word “meet,” as in to meet another person, and “meal,” an appointed time for gathering and eating.

The spelling likely evolved through the influence of folk etymology, perhaps associating the extortion with correspondence meant to intimidate or exploitative written agreements. By the mid-1800s blackmail had evolved to today’s sense, referring to threats that the offender would publicly expose secrets unless paid.

Read more in Words from Hell.