Intolerable Acts

Cultural

Also known as the Coercive Acts; a series of British measures passed in 1774 and designed to punish the Massachusetts colonists for the Boston Tea Party. For example, one of the laws closed the port of Boston until the colonists paid for the tea that they had destroyed. Although the acts were intended to check colonial opposition to Britain, they only inflamed it.

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

It took violence, punitive taxes, the Intolerable Acts and more to spur Americans to take the extraordinary step of breaking with Britain.

From The Wall Street Journal

"We believe them, we know that these intolerable acts have left their mark and we stand by them," it added.

From BBC

Americans like Washington were growing more upset over the injustice of taxes and other “Intolerable Acts.”

From Literature

Colonists had a nickname for these new laws: the Intolerable Acts.

From National Geographic

Delegates likened the Intolerable Acts to “being degraded into a state of servitude” and expressed their grievances because “silence would be disloyalty.”

From National Geographic

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023