spoliation

From Latin spoliātiō, from spoliāre +‎ -tiō, from spolium (“skin, hide, fell”) +‎ -āre.

• IPA^(key): /ˌspəʊliˈeɪʃən/

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spoliation (countable and uncountable, plural spoliations)

1. (archaic) The act of plundering or spoiling; robbery

   Synonyms: deprivation, despoliation

   • 1832, Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Heath's Book of Beauty, 1833, The Knife, page 121:

     The shop bore even more evident signs of spoliation—that reckless wastefulness which seems the constant companion of cruelty; but little of the grocery appeared to have been touched, excepting the sweet things.

   • 1852 March – 1853 September, Charles Dickens, chapter 1, in Bleak House, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1853, →OCLC:

     In trickery, evasion, procrastination, spoliation, botheration, under false pretences of all sorts, there are influences that can never come to good.

2. Robbery or plunder in times of war; especially, the authorized act or practice of plundering neutrals at sea.
3. (law) The intentional destruction of or tampering with (a document) in such way as to impair evidentiary effect.

• writ of spoliation

• despoil
• despolation
• spoil
• spoliate
• spoliative
• spoliator
• spoliatory
• spolium

• “spoliation”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “spoliation”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

• isopointal, positional

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spoliation f (plural spoliations)

1. spoliation

• “spoliation”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.