English Explanatory Dictionary

spoil

English dictionary entry

Meanings

verb

To strip (someone who has been killed or defeated) of arms or armour.
To strip or deprive (someone) of possessions; to rob, despoil.
To plunder, pillage (a city, country etc.).
To carry off (goods) by force; to steal.
To ruin; to damage in such a way as to make undesirable or unusable.
To ruin the character of, by overindulgence; to coddle or pamper to excess.
To go bad; to become sour or rancid; to decay.
To render (a ballot) invalid by deliberately defacing.
To prematurely reveal major events or the ending of (a story etc.); to ruin (a surprise) by exposing ahead of time as a spoiler.
To reduce the lift generated by an airplane or wing by deflecting air upwards, usually with a spoiler.
To be very eager (for something).

noun

Plunder taken from an enemy or victim.
The act of taking plunder from an enemy or victim; spoliation, pillage, rapine.
Material (such as rock or earth) removed in the course of an excavation, or in mining or dredging. Tailings. Such material could be utilised somewhere else.

Pronunciation

spoil /spɔɪl/ en-us-spoil.ogg

Word forms

spoil spoils spoiling spoiled spoilt

Etymology

Etymology tree Latin spolium Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti Proto-Italic *-āō Latin -ō Latin spoliāre Old French espoillierbor. Middle English spoilen English spoil From Middle English spoilen, spuylen, borrowed from Old French espoillier, espollier, espuler, from Latin spoliō, spoliāre (“pillage, ruin, spoil”).

Synonyms

ball up blight bumble botch bugger up bungle contaminate corrupt crab deprave disrupt disturb foil fuck up jack up mar mess up mishandle mommick pollute put a crimp in queer screw up soil sour spoil stain undo upset turn upside down upset the applecart vitiate damage destroy sully ruin coddle pamper indulge mollycoddle booty gangue slag tailings

Antonyms

aid cultivate foster nurture support sustain uphold prop up hold up bolster

Related words

despoil spoilsport spoilage spoils of war spoilt too many cooks spoil the broth

Derived words

one bad apple can spoil the barrel one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch Q-spoil spare the rod and spoil the child spoilability spoilable spoilee spoilfive spoilful spoiling for a fight spoil market spoil-paper spoilsome spoil somebody rotten spoil someone rotten spoilsport spoil the market spoil the ship for a ha'p'orth of tar spoil the ship for a hap'orth of tar too many chefs spoil the broth too many cooks spoil the soup too many cooks spoil the stew unspoil you must spoil before you spin spoiler spoil heap spoilless

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