This wrong can be stated in any terms, and is not always one that is widespread. A boycott may be oriented towards shaming offenders rather than punishing them economically, depending on its duration and scope. When long-term and widespread, a boycott is just one of many tactics in moral purchasing.
The word boycott is derived from Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott, a ruthless English land agent in Ireland who was subject to a boycott organized by the Irish Land League in 1880.
Instances of the use of boycotts are their use by African Americans during the US civil rights movement; the United Farm Workers union grape and lettuce boycotts; the American boycott of British goods at the time of the American Revolution; the Indian boycott of British goods organized by Mohandas Gandhi; and the Arab League boycott of Israel and companies trading with Israel.
A boycott is normally considered a one-time affair designed to correct an outstanding single wrong. When extended for a long period of time, or as part of an overall program of awareness-raising or reforms to laws or regimes, a boycott is part of moral purchasing, and those economic or political terms are to be preferred.
Most organized consumer boycotts today are focused on long-term change of buying habits, and so fit into part of a larger political program, with many techniques that require a longer structural commitment, e.g. reform to commodity markets, or government commitment to moral purchasing, e.g. the longstanding boycott of South African businesses to protest apartheid. These stretch the meaning of a 'boycott'.
Another form of consumer boycotting is substitution for an equivalent product; for example Mecca Cola.
Today a prime target of boycotts is consumerism itself, e.g. "International Buy Nothing Day" celebrated globally on November 29.
See also: moral purchasing, non-violent resistance, Stop Esso campaign, election boycott
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