goonda tax
n.— «The main accused in the Magarasa massacre was arrested by the police on Wednesday morning from the same locality while he was engaged in extorting goonda tax from shopkeepers.» —“Main accused in Magarasa homicide arrested” in Kanpur Times of India Mar. 19, 1999. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
What if, instead of being an inanimate object, a dictionary were alive? That’s the idea behind a lavishly illustrated new children’s book called The Dictionary Story (Bookshop|Amazon) by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston. This is part of a...
The English language has been greatly enriched by borrowings from the languages of Asia. Barely scratching the surface, we have from Japan skosh, tycoon, tsunami, origami, yen, kimono, futon, and karaoke. From Chinese comes yen, kowtow, gung ho, and...