|
|
Definition of Despoil
1. Verb. Steal goods; take as spoils. "During the earthquake people looted the stores that were deserted by their owners"
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"
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
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 ..."
Other Resources:
