despoil
Americanverb (used with object)
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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despoilsimple
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despoilssimple
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have despoiledperfect
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has despoiledperfect
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am despoilingprogressive
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are despoilingprogressive
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is despoilingprogressive
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have been despoilingperfect progressive
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has been despoilingperfect progressive
Past
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despoiledsimple
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had despoiledperfect
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was despoilingprogressive
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were despoilingprogressive
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had been despoilingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of despoil
1175–1225; Middle English despoilen < Old French despoillier < Latin dēspoliāre to strip, rob, plunder, equivalent to dē- de- + spoliāre to plunder; see spoil
Explanation
Despoil is to spoil, only worse. You may spoil a dinner party by being late, but we all despoil the earth with pollution and over-consumption. The Latin root of despoil meant "to strip or rob" and although despoil is used more broadly now, it has that sense within it. When we despoil the earth, we rob it of its beauty and strip it of its natural resources. In the same way, an invading army might despoil a village, wrecking houses and stealing valuables.
Vocabulary lists containing despoil
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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Lyndon B. Johnson on "The Great Society" (1964)
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Tolkien Reading Day, List 6
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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.
See Examples For:
The naysayers list a cavalcade of complaints against the new Win-River casino complex, saying it would despoil prime farmland, exacerbate traffic, increase police and fire protection costs and threaten native fish in the Sacramento River.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 19, 2023
There is an economic aspect to the story in that greed is driving developers to despoil these areas because they see profit.
From Salon ● Mar. 2, 2023
The slightest mistake would despoil the land and the waters, and America has seen plenty of such mistakes over the years.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 5, 2023
That measure is opposed by members of the local Mura tribe, who say mining would despoil the natural habitat upon which they depend.
From Reuters ● Mar. 23, 2022
Yet we have made the vow; and though no other human generation hath done other than despoil, perhaps we shall be the first.
From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson
Unfortunately, your visit to Glacier NP was an example of exactly the kind of behavior that despoils and degrades our parks and wildernesses.
From New York Times ● Sep. 20, 2016
There are many benefits of not selling water in disposable bottles in national parks, including reducing trash at parks, carbon emissions and the litter that despoils our parks, landscape and waterways.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 24, 2015
Roger is jealous when Jane flirts with Manishewitz Jr.—“I thought you liked the crabs rangoon here!”—and despoils her new, Roger-free apartment accordingly.
From Slate ● May 14, 2012
Stinking garbage and human excrement despoils Thailand's majestic River of Kings.
From Time Magazine Archive
As you enter a gaming-house the law despoils you of your hat at the outset.
From The Magic Skin by Marriage, Ellen
Metaphors may have no place at a concentration camp, but it’s hard to look at this beautiful enclosed space and not see it, perversely, as the most despoiled of Edens.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 14, 2023
Too much of Seattle has been despoiled by the greed and power of developers.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 18, 2022
The natural environment with which Native Americans had established a harmonious and symbiotic relationship, was similarly despoiled by the twin logic of expropriation and colonization that spread under the logic of manifest destiny.
From Scientific American ● Aug. 10, 2021
We know we’ve despoiled the land, And the climate is way out of hand, But when we say, “Ow! Well, mea culpa, hey?”
From Washington Post ● Dec. 5, 2019
Somebody must be despoiled for its benefit—somebody too defenceless to resist, yet possessed of property sufficient to be tempting.
From A History of The Inquisition of The Middle Ages; volume II by Lea, Henry Charles
Miners hauled in hydraulic equipment to dig and dredge and strip the mountains, polluting the runoff so badly that in 1874, the flatlanders who depended on that water went to court to stop the despoiling.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 11, 2025
Plastic, along with other litter, is also despoiling the landscape and polluting our waterways.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 7, 2023
I just wish I hadn’t let my fandom lead me into the fluorescent-lit land of plot despoiling.
From New York Times ● Dec. 10, 2022
A global explosion of disposable plastic, which is made from oil and gas, is increasing carbon emissions, despoiling the world's oceans, harming wildlife and contaminating the food chain.
From Reuters ● Feb. 18, 2022
But in the background of all the conversations among the visitors to the island was indignation at the despoiling of the roads they had traveled.
From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
