danegeld

1. (history) A tax raised originally to pay tribute or protection money to the Viking raiders in the 10th and 11th centuries to save a land from being ravaged, and later continued as a land tax.Examples: "And who shall then stick closest to ye, and excite others? not he who takes up armes for cote and conduct, and his four nobles of Danegelt."Synonyms: heregelduncountable

2. (by extension) Any kind of tribute.Examples: "The best now pay danegeld to the sloths, the greedy, the manipulators. And congress has legitimized the channels of deceit through laws which pay danegeld to the most strident noise makers."; "But this part of the industry still had to pay Danegeld to the already over-endowed City."; "This is not just a question of intelligent men selling out or having to pay Danegeld to the fundamentalists and the unions; ..."broadlyuncountable