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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

spoliation.

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.

10 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/spəʊliˈeɪʃn̩/Received-Pronunciation/spoʊliˈeɪʃən/General-American
  1. 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.

    archaic · uncountable
  2. The action of destroying or ruining; destruction, ruin.

    broadly · uncountable
  3. The action of an incumbent (“holder of an ecclesiastical benefice”) wrongfully depriving another of the emoluments of a benefice.

    broadly · historical · uncountable
  4. A lawsuit brought or writ issued by an incumbent against another, claiming that the latter has wrongfully taken the emoluments of a benefice.

    broadly · countable · historical
  5. The intentional destruction of, or tampering with, a document so as to impair its evidentiary value.

    broadly · uncountable
  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.

    broadly · uncountable
    Spoliation of Jewish property by Nazi authorities occurred on a large scale during World War II.
  7. The government-sanctioned action or practice of plundering neutral ships at sea; (countable) an instance of this.

    broadly · historical · uncountable
Where this word comes from

From Late Middle English spoliacioun (“looting, robbery, theft; an instance of this; (ecclesiastical) wrongful deprivation of the emoluments of a benefice due to another”), from Anglo-Norman spoliacioun, espolïacion, and directly from their etymon Latin spoliātiō (“plundering, robbing”), from spoliāre + -tiō (suffix forming nouns denoting a process, action, or result of an action). Spoliāre is the present active infinitive of spoliō (“to deprive or strip of clothing or covering, unclothe, uncover; (by extension) to pillage, plunder; etc.”), from spolium (“hide or skin stripped off an animal; (by extension) booty, spoil; etc.”). The English word was probably also influenced by French spoliation.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.