spoliation

• POS: Noun
• HYPHEN: spo=li=a=tion

CIDE DICTIONARY

spoliation, n. [L. spoliatio: cf. F. spoliation. See Spoil, v. t.].

•  The act of plundering; robbery; deprivation; despoliation.  [1913 Webster]

  "Legal spoliation, which will impoverish one part of the community in order to corrupt the remainder."  [1913 Webster]
•  Robbery or plunder in war; especially, the authorized act or practice of plundering neutrals at sea.  [1913 Webster]
•  The act of an incumbent in taking the fruits of his benefice without right, but under a pretended title.  Blackstone.  [1913 Webster]
•  Injury done to a document.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

spoliation, n.
1 a plunder or pillage, esp. of neutral vessels in war. b extortion.
2 Eccl. the taking of the fruits of a benefice under a pretended title etc.
3 Law the destruction, mutilation, or alteration, of a document to prevent its being used as evidence.

Derivative

spoliator n. spoliatory adj.

Etymology

ME f. L spoliatio (as SPOIL)

THESAURUS

spoliation

banditry, bereavement, bloodbath, blue ruin, breakup, brigandage, brigandism, carnage, consumption, cost, damage, damnation, dead loss, debit, decimation, denial, denudation, depredation, deprivation, desolation, despoiling, despoilment, despoliation, destruction, detriment, devastation, direption, disintegration, disorganization, dispossession, disruption, dissolution, divestment, expense, foraging, foray, forfeit, forfeiture, freebooting, havoc, hecatomb, holocaust, injury, looting, loser, losing, losing streak, loss, marauding, perdition, pillage, pillaging, plunder, plundering, privation, raid, raiding, ransacking, rape, rapine, ravage, ravagement, ravaging, ravishment, razzia, reiving, rifling, robbery, ruin, ruination, sack, sacking, sacrifice, shambles, slaughter, spoiling, stripping, taking away, total loss, undoing, vandalism, waste, wrack, wrack and ruin, wreck

ROGET THESAURUS

spoliation

Evil

N evil, ill, harm, hurt, mischief, nuisance, machinations of the devil, Pandora's box, ills that flesh is heir to, blow, buffet, stroke, scratch, bruise, wound, gash, mutilation, mortal blow, wound, immedicabile vulnus, damage, loss, disadvantage, prejudice, drawback, disaster, accident, casualty, mishap, bad job, devil to pay, calamity, bale, catastrophe, tragedy, ruin, adversity, mental suffering, demon, (Evil spirit) bane, (cause of evil), badness, (Production of Evil), painfulness, evil doer, outrage, wrong, injury, foul play, bad turn, ill turn, disservice, spoliation, grievance, crying evil, disastrous, bad, awry, out of joint, disadvantageous, amis, wrong, ill, to one's cost, moving accidents by flood and field.

Stealing

N stealing, theft, thievery, latrociny, direption, abstraction, appropriation, plagiary, plagiarism, autoplagiarism, latrocinium, spoliation, plunder, pillage, sack, sackage, rapine, brigandage, foray, razzia, rape, depredation, raid, blackmail, piracy, privateering, buccaneering, license to plunder, letters of marque, letters of mark and reprisal, filibustering, filibusterism, burglary, housebreaking, badger game, robbery, highway robbery, hold-up, mugging, peculation, embezzlement, fraud, larceny, petty larceny, grand larceny, shoplifting, thievishness, rapacity, kleptomania, Alsatia, den of Cacus, den of thieves, blackmail, extortion, shakedown, Black Hand, thief, thieving, thievish, light-fingered, furacious, furtive, piratical, predaceous, predal, predatory, predatorial, raptorial, stolen, sic vos non vobis.