Brewer's: Ostracis'm

Oyster-shelling, black-balling, or expelling. Clisthenes gave the people of Attica the power of removing from the state, without making a definite charge, any leader of the people likely to subvert the government. Each citizen wrote his vote on an earthen. ware table (ostracon), whence the term.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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