What’s the difference between bribery and extortion? Extortion is often the act of requiring a bribe from someone, or forcing someone to provide money or favors in some other corrupt way. It’s especially used in the context of politics to criticize politicians for using methods that are similar to or that some consider to be extortion. The word is also often used in a more general way. All of these kinds of extortion are serious crimes that can carry a lengthy prison sentence.

Sometimes, people extort money or favors from other people by abusing their power or authority.

Blackmail is a specific type of extortion. Extortion can happen in a lot of different ways, such as through intimidation and threats like these or through violence. When a mobster walks into a shop and says, “Nice place you got here-it would be a shame if something happened to it,” they’re threatening to make bad things (destruction and violence) happen unless you pay them not to do those bad things. It ultimately comes from the Latin extortus, meaning “wrenched out,” from the verb extorquēre, “to wrest away,” from torquēre, “to twist.” The first records of the word extortion come from the 1200s.

Extort root tor meaning