Spoliation

Quick meaning: Spoliation is a noun meaning The action of destroying or ruining; destruction, ruin.

Meaning

The action of destroying or ruining; destruction, ruin.

More Meanings

1. The action of an incumbent (“holder of an ecclesiastical benefice”) wrongfully depriving another of the emoluments of a benefice.
2. The intentional destruction of, or tampering with, a document so as to impair its evidentiary value.
3. The government-sanctioned action or practice of plundering neutral ships at sea; (countable) an instance of this.
4. (uncountable, archaic) The action of spoliating, or forcibly seizing property; pillage, plunder; also, the state of having property forcibly seized; (countable) an instance of this; a robbery, a seizure.
5. A lawsuit brought or writ issued by an incumbent against another, claiming that the latter has wrongfully taken the emoluments of a benefice.
6. The systematic forcible seizure of property during a crisis or state of unrest such as that caused by war, now regarded as a crime; looting, pillage, plunder; (countable) an instance of this.

Example Sentences

A Benefice is ſaid to be vacant de Facto, and not de Jure, vvhen the Poſſeſſion thereof is loſt by Spoliation or Intruſion, and the like: […]

There is much sad evidence, too, of the spoliation and dereliction of vanished industry: tips, slag-heaps and derelict colliery-screens among which the ubiquitous, nomad mountain sheep graze unconcernedly.

The weapons of the empire had been […] an unequalled genius for organization, and an uniform system of external law and order. This was generally a real boon to conquered nations, because it substituted a fixed and regular spoliation for the fortuitous and arbitrary miseries of savage warfare: […]

How many people out of the suit, Jarndyce and Jarndyce has stretched forth its unwholesome hand to spoil and corrupt, would be a very wide question. […] In trickery, evasion, procrastination, spoliation, botheration, under false pretences of all sorts, there are influences that can never come to good.

Word Forms

• spoliations

Synonyms for spoliation

Depending on context, synonyms include deprivation, despoliation, exspoliation, plundering, rapine, spoil.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include despoilment, despoliation, spoil, spoilation, damage, harm.

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