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spoil

verb
/spɔɪl/

Etymology

Etymology tree Latin spolium Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti Proto-Italic *-āō Latin -ō Latin spoliāre Old French espoillierbor. Middle English spoilen English spoil From Middle English spoilen, spuylen, borrowed from Old French espoillier, espollier, espuler, from Latin spoliō, spoliāre (“pillage, ruin, spoil”).

  1. derived from spoliō — “pillage, ruin, spoil”
  2. derived from espoillier
  3. inherited from spoilen

Definitions

  1. To strip (someone who has been killed or defeated) of arms or armour.

  2. To strip or deprive (someone) of possessions

    To strip or deprive (someone) of possessions; to rob, despoil.

    • All that herde hym wer amased and sayde: ys nott this he that spoylled them whych called on this name in Jerusalem?
    • To do her dye (quoth Vna) were despight, / And shame t'auenge so weake an enimy; / But spoile her of her scarlot robe, and let her fly.
    • Roger, that rich Bishop of Salisbury,[…]spoiled of his goods by King Stephen, […]through grief ran mad, spoke and did he knew not what.

  3. To plunder, pillage (a city, country etc.).

    • Outlaws, which, lurking in woods, used to break forth to rob and spoil.
  4. ›+ 11 more definitions

    1. To carry off (goods) by force

      To carry off (goods) by force; to steal.

      • No man can enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man.

    2. To ruin

      To ruin; to damage in such a way as to make undesirable or unusable.

      • All this sun spoils me for vacations in the far North.
      • Spiritual pride […] spoils so many graces.
      • "I don't want to spoil any comparison you are going to make," said Jim, "but I was at Winchester and New College." ¶ "That will do," said Mackenzie. "I was dragged up at the workhouse school till I was twelve. […]"

    3. To ruin the character of, by overindulgence

      To ruin the character of, by overindulgence; to coddle or pamper to excess.

    4. To go bad

      To go bad; to become sour or rancid; to decay.

      • Make sure you put the milk back in the fridge; otherwise it will spoil.

    5. To render (a ballot) invalid by deliberately defacing.

      • Dr Jonathan Grant (Letters, April 22) feels the best way to show his disaffection with political parties over Iraq is to spoil his ballot paper.

    6. To prematurely reveal major events or the ending of (a story etc.)

      To prematurely reveal major events or the ending of (a story etc.); to ruin (a surprise) by exposing ahead of time as a spoiler.

    7. To reduce the lift generated by an airplane or wing by deflecting air upwards, usually…

      To reduce the lift generated by an airplane or wing by deflecting air upwards, usually with a spoiler.

    8. To be very eager (for something).

      • Senator Toombs who announced his readiness to whip Great Britain [...] has been spoiling for a fight ever since

    9. Plunder taken from an enemy or victim.

      • Thoſe thouſand horſe shall ſweat with martiall ſpoyle Of conquered kingdomes, and of Cities ſackt, […]

    10. The act of taking plunder from an enemy or victim

      The act of taking plunder from an enemy or victim; spoliation, pillage, rapine.

      • This countrey ſwarmes with vile outragious men, That liue by rapine and by lawleſſe ſpoile, Fit ſouldiers for the wicked Tamburlaine.

    11. Material (such as rock or earth) removed in the course of an excavation, or in mining or…

      Material (such as rock or earth) removed in the course of an excavation, or in mining or dredging. Tailings. Such material could be utilised somewhere else.

The neighborhood

Derived

one bad apple can spoil the barrel, one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch, Q-spoil, spare the rod and spoil the child, spoilability, spoilable, spoilee, spoilfive, spoilful, spoiling for a fight, spoil market, spoil-paper, spoilsome, spoil somebody rotten, spoil someone rotten, spoilsport, spoil the market, spoil the ship for a ha'p'orth of tar, spoil the ship for a hap'orth of tar, too many chefs spoil the broth, too many cooks spoil the soup, too many cooks spoil the stew, unspoil, you must spoil before you spin, spoiler, spoil heap, spoilless

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at spoil. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01spoil02rob03unjustly04unjust05fair06clean07blemishes08blemish

A definitional loop anchored at spoil. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

8 hops · closes at spoil

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA