Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To plunder; pillage; despoil.
  • To engage in robbery; plunder.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • verb To plunder; to pillage; to despoil; to rob.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb transitive, obsolete To plunder; to pillage; to despoil; to rob.
  • verb intransitive, obsolete To engage in robbery; to plunder.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin spoliātus, perfect passive participle of spoliō ("plunder, pillage, rob").

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Examples

  • EDITOR: Presumably this is why she thinks she can spoliate the role of the Queen for herself?

    Archive 2009-06-01 Thatsnews 2009

  • EDITOR: Presumably this is why she thinks she can spoliate the role of the Queen for herself?

    Brown booed by crowd. How long can Wee Gurning Jimmy Brown last, now? Thatsnews 2009

  • But it is theft of an aggravated kind, as the property which it would spoliate is more highly appraised than other chattels.

    The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 1: Aachen-Assize 1840-1916 1913

  • Will Great Britain, a wise and magnanimous country, thus tutored by experience and wasted by war, the French Navy riding her Channel, send an army to Ireland, to levy no tax, to enforce no law, to answer no end whatsoever, except to spoliate the charters of Ireland and enforce a barren oppression?

    I. A Plea for Irish Legislative Independence 1906

  • Judge Whyte found Rambus did not spoliate evidence as Hynix had alleged, and a jury found Rambus patents valid and infringed by Hynix.

    unknown title 2009

  • Therefore, to spoliate evidence suggests that the spoliators 'argument or theory would be weakened, or embarrassed, by that evidence.

    Latest Articles 2009

  • Judge Whyte found Rambus did not spoliate evidence as Hynix had alleged, and a jury found Rambus patents valid and infringed by Hynix.

    Nachrichten Ticker - www.finanzen.net 2009

  • Judge Whyte found Rambus did not spoliate evidence as Hynix had alleged, and a jury found Rambus patents valid and infringed by Hynix.

    unknown title 2009

  • Judge Whyte found Rambus did not spoliate evidence as Hynix had alleged, and a jury found Rambus patents valid and infringed by Hynix.

    unknown title 2009

  • Jan. 5, 2006) found that Rambus did not spoliate evidence.

    Delaware Corporate and Commercial Litigation Blog 2009

Comments

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  • Spoliate (adjective) means destitute, devoid (OED).

    February 13, 2012