vandalize
Americanverb (used with object)
-
vandalizes,
present (3rd person singular)
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vandalized,
past participle, past
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vandalizing
present participle
verb
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
vandalizesimple
-
vandalizessimple
-
have vandalizedperfect
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has vandalizedperfect
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am vandalizingprogressive
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are vandalizingprogressive
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is vandalizingprogressive
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have been vandalizingperfect progressive
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has been vandalizingperfect progressive
Past
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vandalizedsimple
-
had vandalizedperfect
-
was vandalizingprogressive
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were vandalizingprogressive
-
had been vandalizingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of vandalize
Explanation
If you vandalize something, you damage or destroy it. Graffiti can be art, but if you spray paint your initials on a marble statue, you vandalize it. Vandalize has an ancient root: the Vandals were a Germanic group of people who famously sacked Rome in 455. Thanks to the terrible destruction they left in their wake, the word took on a meaning of "willful destroyer of what is beautiful." To vandalize is to deliberately damage something that doesn't belong to you. For some, it's a tradition to vandalize whole neighborhoods on the night before Halloween, strewing toilet paper in trees, smashing jack-o'-lanterns, and spray painting property. We recommend just trick-or-treating instead.
Vocabulary lists containing vandalize
Hoot
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Twins
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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:
"I didn’t vandalize anything," Hearn told the Washington Post last month.
From Barron's ● Jul. 2, 2026
San Francisco police said they responded to two separate attempts to break in to or vandalize a Scientology property near the city’s Chinatown neighborhood in recent weeks.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 8, 2026
Last school year, several schools closed bathrooms because of a TikTok trend that encouraged students to vandalize and steal paper towel dispensers and fire alarms.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 26, 2023
Mr. Jordan said he believes the Department of Justice has the ability to prosecute people who vandalize crisis pregnancy centers.
From Washington Times ● Jan. 11, 2023
“And yes, if they’re going to go through all the hassle to vandalize one of my books, you’d think they’d check their spelling.”
From "The Parker Inheritance" by Varian Johnson
Missouri Revised Statute 194.410 states that any person or entity that “knowingly disturbs, destroys, vandalizes, or damages a marked or unmarked human burial site commits a class D felony.”
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 14, 2021
In another tweet Tuesday, Trump said anyone who vandalizes or topples a statute could be charged under a federal law.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 23, 2020
Macron’s government has said it will crack down harder on unauthorized protests and get tougher on anyone who loots or vandalizes shops and monuments.
From Reuters ● Jan. 9, 2019
When Bart vandalizes a statue in the center of Springfield, he confesses to the whole town and is immediately forgiven.
From Slate ● Aug. 21, 2014
He draws in nail polish, sloshes gnarly ceramic sculptures with glaze, builds and vandalizes Formica plinths in mockery of Minimalism and makes street-wise, toxic-looking Rothkos, using black and fluorescent spray paint.
From New York Times ● Feb. 12, 2010
Attorney Jeanine Pirro stepped to a lectern last month and evinced no doubt that her office would prove that a former Olympic canoeist, David Hearn, had vandalized the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 4, 2026
Irvine police said it had responded to an altercation at the intersection of Michelson Drive and Carlson Avenue, the general area where the 13 Teslas had been vandalized.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 30, 2026
Trump said on social media on 20 June that "work will begin immediately on fixing the seriously vandalized Reflecting Pool".
From BBC ● Jul. 2, 2026
Julie Menin, speaker of the New York City Council, wrote on social media that "multiple synagogues and private homes in Queens were vandalized overnight with swastikas and other antisemitic graffiti."
From Barron's ● May 4, 2026
The policeman couldn’t see what there was to be vandalized on the property, which was basically a few acres of scraggly weeds.
From "Hoot" by Carl Hiaasen
Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro to prosecute David Hearn, a former Olympian who was accused of vandalizing the Reflecting Pool at the Lincoln Memorial.
From Salon ● Aug. 21, 2026
Iran’s prosecutor-general, Mohammad Movahedi-Azad, expanded that standard in January to include vandalizing public property and instructed prosecutors to pursue such cases without leniency.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026
A former US Olympian accused of vandalizing Washington's newly renovated Reflecting Pool was charged on Thursday with a felony and could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted, a federal prosecutor said.
From Barron's ● Jul. 2, 2026
In July, a Castro Valley resident was charged with vandalizing 17 Waymos in San Francisco over the course of three days, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 8, 2025
On Thursday, British authorities charged a pair of climate change activists for vandalizing Stonehenge, a prehistoric megalithic structure on a chalk plateau known as the Salisbury Plain.
From Salon ● Nov. 16, 2024
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.
