spoliation

English

Etymology

From Latin spoliātiō, from spoliāre +‎ -tiō, from spolium (“skin, hide, fell”) +‎ -āre.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌspəʊliˈeɪʃən/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

Noun

spoliation (countable and uncountable, plural spoliations)

1. The action of ruining or destroying something.
   • 1955 July, D. S. Barrie, “Railways of the Bridgend District”, in Railway Magazine, page 449:

     There is much sad evidence, too, of the spoliation and dereliction of vanished industry: tips, slag-heaps and derelict colliery-screens among which the ubiquitous, nomad mountain sheep graze unconcernedly.

2. (archaic) The act of plundering or spoiling; robbery

   Synonyms: deprivation, despoliation

   • 1832, Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Heath's Book of Beauty, 1833, The Knife, page 121:

     The shop bore even more evident signs of spoliation—that reckless wastefulness which seems the constant companion of cruelty; but little of the grocery appeared to have been touched, excepting the sweet things.

   • 1852 March – 1853 September, Charles Dickens, chapter 1, in Bleak House, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1853, →OCLC:

     In trickery, evasion, procrastination, spoliation, botheration, under false pretences of all sorts, there are influences that can never come to good.

3. Robbery or plunder in times of war; especially, the authorized act or practice of plundering neutrals at sea.
4. (law) The intentional destruction of or tampering with (a document) in such way as to impair evidentiary effect.

Derived terms

• writ of spoliation

Related terms

• despoil
• despoliation
• spoil
• spoliate
• spoliative
• spoliator
• spoliatory
• spolium

Translations

plundering

• Bulgarian: ограбване (bg) n (ograbvane)
• Dutch: plundering (nl)
• Ottoman Turkish: صویغون (soygun)
• Portuguese: espoliação (pt) f
• Spanish: despojo (es) m, expoliación (es)

authorized plundering

• Bulgarian: плячкосване (bg) n (pljačkosvane)
• Dutch: vrijbuiterij

destruction of evidence

• Dutch: bewijsvernietiging
• German: Beweisvereitelung f

References

• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “spoliation”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “spoliation”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Anagrams

• isopointal, positional

French

Pronunciation

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

spoliation f (plural spoliations)

1. spoliation

Further reading

• “spoliation”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.