Definition of Despoil

1. Verb. Steal goods; take as spoils. "During the earthquake people looted the stores that were deserted by their owners"

Exact synonyms: Foray, Loot, Pillage, Plunder, Ransack, Reave, Rifle, Strip
Generic synonyms: Take
Specialized synonyms: Deplume, Displume
Derivative terms: Despoiler, Despoilment, Despoliation, Loot, Looter, Looting, Pillage, Pillager, Pillaging, Plunder, Plunderer, Plundering

2. Verb. Destroy and strip of its possession. "They want to despoil the prisoners "; "The soldiers raped the beautiful country"
Exact synonyms: Plunder, Rape, Spoil, Violate
Generic synonyms: Destroy, Ruin
Derivative terms: Despoilment, Despoliation, Plundering, Rape, Spoil, Spoil, Spoilation, Spoliation

Definition of Despoil

1. v. t. To strip, as of clothing; to divest or unclothe.

2. n. Spoil.

Definition of Despoil

1. Verb. (transitive) To deprive for spoil; to take spoil from; to plunder; to rob; to pillage. ¹

2. Verb. (transitive) To violently strip (someone), with indirect object '''of''' their possessions etc.; to rob. ¹

3. Verb. (obsolete transitive or reflexive) To strip (someone) of their clothes; to undress. ¹

4. Noun. (obsolete) Plunder; spoliation. ¹

¹ Source: wiktionary.com

Definition of Despoil

1. to plunder [v -ED, -ING, -S] - See also: plunder

Medical Definition of Despoil

1. 1. To strip, as of clothing; to divest or unclothe. 2. To deprive for spoil; to plunder; to rob; to pillage; to strip; to divest; usually followed by of. "The clothed earth is then bare, Despoiled is the summer fair." (Gower) "A law which restored to them an immense domain of which they had been despoiled." (Macaulay) "Despoiled of innocence, of faith, of bliss." (Milton) Synonym: To strip, deprive, rob, bereave, rifle. Origin: OF. Despoiller, F. Depouiller, L. Despoliare, despoliatum; de- + spoliare to strip, rob, spolium spoil, booty. Cf. Spoil, Despoliation. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998)

Lexicographical Neighbors of Despoil

despisest
despiseth
despising
despisingly
despisingness
despite
despited
despiteful
despitefully
despitefulness
despiteous
despiteously
despites
despiting
despitous
despoil (current term)
despoilation
despoiled
despoiler
despoilers
despoiling
despoilment
despoilments
despoils
despoliation
despoliations
despond
desponded
despondence
despondences

Literary usage of Despoil

Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:

1. Crabb's English Synonyms by George. Crabb (1917)
"Sack is a stronger word than despoil. It means to go through a conquered ... despoil means to strip off something valuable, but it does not imply such ..."

2. Notes and Queries by Martim de Albuquerque (1856)
"The antithesis must be, let fortune raise this beggar, and let her strip and despoil that lord of all his pomp and ornaments, &c., ..."

3. The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge: Embracing by Johann Jakob Herzog, Philip Schaff, Albert Hauck (1910)
"The crusades gave new opportunities to despoil this people. The principal colony was at Narbonne, consisting of 300 families, among them that of the Hebrew ..."

4. The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury by Thomas Hobbes (1841)
"Wherefore no subjects, how "~""" many soever they be, can with any right despoil him who bears the chief rule of his authority, even without his own consent ..."

5. The Encyclopedia Americana: A Library of Universal Knowledge (1919)
"The promotion of companies to despoil the Spanish Moors and Jews, as organized under the Compera, seems to have been abandoned for lack of material. ..."

6. The Works of Hannah More: With a Sketch of Her Life by Hannah More (1827)
"... wise inhabitant of t lie British isles fence, and point out the uses to which ii is I must feel, that be wbo would despoil the ..."

7. A Complete History of Connecticut, Civil and Ecclesiastical from the by Benjamin Trumbull (1818)
"... to despoil Connecticut of its charter. Bill for re-uniting the charter governments to the crown. Sir Henry Ashurst petitions against, and prevents the ..."

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