despoil

despoil

English

Etymology

From Middle English despoylen, dispoylen, from Old French despoillier ( > French dépouiller), from Latin dēspoliō, dēspoliāre.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dɪˈspɔɪl/

• Audio (UK)

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• Rhymes: -ɔɪl

Verb

despoil (third-person singular simple present despoils, present participle despoiling, simple past and past participle despoiled)

1. (transitive) To plunder; to pillage; take spoil from.
   • 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter 20, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, OCLC 1069526323:

     a law which restored to them an immense domain of which they had been despoiled

   • 1859, George Meredith, chapter 5, in The Ordeal of Richard Feverel. A History of Father and Son. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, OCLC 213819910:

     Ripton was familiar with the rod, a monster much despoiled of his terrors by intimacy.

   • 2003; Owaku, Hiroyuki; trans. Blaustein, Jeremy, et al., quoting Claudia Wolf, Silent Hill 3, Tokyo: Konami, PlayStation 2; PC:

     They have come to witness the Beginning. The rebirth of Paradise, despoiled by mankind.

   • 2010, The Economist, 17 July, p.53:

     To dreamers in the West, Tibet is a Shangri-La despoiled by Chinese ruthlessness and rapacity.

2. (transitive) To violently strip (someone), with indirect object of their possessions etc.; to rob.
   • 1614, Sir Walter Raleigh, History of the World:

     The Earl of March, following the plain path which his father had trodden out, despoiled Henry the father, and Edward the son, both of their lives and kingdom.

   • 1667, John Milton, “Book IX”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […], OCLC 228722708; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554, lines 410-11:

     To intercept thy way, or send thee back / Despoiled of innocence, of faith, of bliss.

   • 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter 20, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, OCLC 1069526323:

     A law which restored to them an immense domain of which they had been despoiled.

3. (obsolete, transitive or reflexive) To strip (someone) of their clothes; to undress.
   • 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, “xij”, in Le Morte Darthur, book VII:

     So syr Persants doughter dyd as her fader bad her / and soo she wente vnto syr Beaumayns bed / & pryuely she dispoylled her / & leid her doune by hym / & thenne he awoke & sawe her & asked her what she was

     (please add an English translation of this quote)

Related terms

• despoiler
• despoilment
• despoliation
• spoliate
• spoliation

Translations

To deprive for spoil; to take spoil from; to plunder; to rob;

Bulgarian: ограбвам (bg) (ograbvam) Greek: Ancient: ληΐζομαι (lēḯzomai) Ido: spoliar (io) Latin: praedor Romanian: despuia (ro) Spanish: despojar (es)

To violently strip (someone), with indirect object of their possessions etc.; to rob.

Bulgarian: грабя (bg) (grabja), плячкосвам (bg) (pljačkosvam) Spanish: despojar (es)

Noun

despoil (plural despoils)

1. (obsolete) Plunder; spoliation.

References

• despoil in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911
• despoil in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913

Anagrams

• diploes, diploës, dipoles, elopids, peloids, soliped, spoiled