Meaning of black rent | Babel Free

Definitions

1. Blackmail (rent paid in corn, meat, or the lowest coin).
   dated, uncountable
2. Protection money.
   Ireland, historical, uncountable

Examples

“[F]rom whose rich domains in Meath he received a “black rent” equivalent to £10,000 a year[.]”

“[N]othing could have preserved them from total extirpation but the assistance afforded them by the other Irish princes and tribes, whose friendship and protection they purchased by paying them a tribute, or black rent, as it was called.”

“[S]he pays me the black rent, and I let her alone[.]”

CEFR level