Meaning

(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..

Definitions by Sense

1. (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.
2. The action of destroying or ruining; destruction, ruin.
3. The action of an incumbent (“holder of an ecclesiastical benefice”) wrongfully depriving another of the emoluments of a benefice.
4. A lawsuit brought or writ issued by an incumbent against another, claiming that the latter has wrongfully taken the emoluments of a benefice.
5. The intentional destruction of, or tampering with, a document so as to impair its evidentiary value.
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.
7. The government-sanctioned action or practice of plundering neutral ships at sea; (countable) an instance of this.

Example Sentences

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.

In Davidson v. New Orleans, above cited [96 U.S. 97 (1878)], it was said that a statute declaring in terms, without more, that the full and exclusive title to a described piece of land belonging to one person should be and is hereby vested in another person, would, if effectual, deprive the former of his property without due process of law, within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. […] Such an enactment would not receive judicial sanction in any country having a written constitution distributing the powers of government among three coördinate departments, and committing to the judiciary, expressly or by implication, authority to enforce the provisions of such constitution. It would be treated not as an exertion of legislative power, but as a sentence—an act of spoliation.

The ritual condemnation of foreign corporations' spoliations of the resources of developing countries and their elevation to the level of international concern have obscured the problem of spoliations by national officials of the wealth of the states of which they are temporary custodians. […] In some cases, absconding officials have left the economies of their countries ransacked and destroyed.

Word Forms

• spoliations

Synonyms for spoliation

Related Words

When Should You Use Spoliation?

Use spoliation when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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