Despoil

Definitions: Despoil

Despoil

Verb

1. Steal goods; take as spoils; "During the earthquake people looted the stores that were deserted by their owners".

2. Destroy and strip of its possession; "The soldiers raped the beautiful country".

Date "despoil" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1613. (references)

Synonyms: Despoil

Synonyms: foray (v), loot (v), pillage (v), plunder (v), ransack (v), rape (v), reave (v), rifle (v), strip (v), violate (v). (additional references)

Context	Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus).
Deterioration	Injure, impair, labefy, damage, harm, hurt, shend, scath, scathe, spoil, mar, despoil, dilapidate, waste; overrun; ravage; pillage.
Stealing	Plunder, pillage, rifle, sack, loot, ransack, spoil, spoliate, despoil, strip, sweep, gut, forage, levy blackmail, pirate, pickeer, maraud, lift cattle, poach; smuggle, run; badger; bail up, hold up, stick up; bunco, bunko, filibuster.
Taking	Oust; (eject); divest; levy, distrain, confiscate; sequester, sequestrate; accroach; usurp; despoil, strip, fleece, shear, displume, impoverish, eat out of house and home; drain, drain to the dregs; gut, dry, exhaust, swallow up; absorb; (suck in); draw off; suck the blood of, suck like a leech.
Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus.

Crosswords: Despoil

English words defined with "despoil": De-, Depredate, Despoiling ♦ Spoliate ♦ To go through. (references)

Specialty definitions using "despoil": Traitor. (references)

Etymologies containing "despoil": Despoliation. (references)

Author	Quotation
St. John Chrysostom	The idea we should have of the rich and covetous -- they are truly as robbers who, standing in the public highway, despoil the passersby.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Title	Author	Quote
Les Miserables	Hugo, Victor	A man has a right, after all, to despoil in part a corpse which he has made.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

"Despoil" is generally used as a lexical verb (infinitive) -- approximately 87.50% of the time. "Despoil" is used about 8 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Lexical Verb (infinitive)	87.5%	7	133,076
Lexical Verb (base form)	12.5%	1	339,140
Total	100.00%	8	N/A

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Language		Translations for "despoil"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Albanian		rrëmbej (collar, denude, deplume, derogate, extort, flick out, grab, hijack, jump, rape, ravish, reave, reive, whip, whip up, wrest), plaçkit (depredate, forage, Harry, hijack, loot, maraud, mug, pillage, pirate, plunder, Raven, ravish, Rob, sack), grabit (amputate, depredate, deprive, flay, fleece, loot, rabble, ransack, Raven, ravish, reave, reive, rent, rip off, Rob, sack, subtract). (various references)

Arabic		‏سلب (bereave, depredation, desiccation, dispossess, dispossession, divest, evisceration, flay, fleece, harrow, loot, looting, maraud, milk, pillage, piracy, plunder, plundering, raid, ransack, rape, rapine, ravish, ravishment, rejoice, riffle, rifle, rob, robbery, sack, skin, spoil, spoliation, steal, stick up, strip). (various references)

Bulgarian		грабя (depredate, pirate, plunder, ravage, reave, reive, sack, spoil), плячкосвам (loot, pill, pillage, plunder, prey, ravish, rifle, sack, spoil). (various references)

Czech		oloupit (bereave, rifle, Rob, strip). (various references)

French		spolier, piller (defalcate). (various references)

German		plündern (foray, Harry, loot, looting, maraud, pillage, plunder, prey on, raid, ransack, ravage, rifle, Rob, sack, spoilt, strip, to despoil), berauben (bereave, bereaved, bereft, deprive, plunder, rob, to deprive, to despoil). (various references)

Greek		ληστεύω (hijack, hold up, rob), λεηλατώ (foray, freeboot, loot, maraud, overrun, pillage, plunder, ransack, ravage, rummage, sack), απογυμνώνω (denude). (various references)

Hebrew		ל� צל (capitalize, exploit, make use of, plunder, sponge, take advantage of, trade on, use, utilize). (various references)

Hungarian		kifoszt (plunder, raid, ransack, reave, reive, to burglarize, to despoil, to fleece, to foray, to gut, to harry, to hijack, to loot, to pill, to plunder, to raid, to ransack, to rifle, to rob, to skin, to spoil). (various references)

Indonesian		merampas (bereave, defraud, deprive, seize). (various references)

Italian		depredare (pillage, plunder, prey on). (various references)

Manx		spooilley (booty, capture, despoliation, loot, pillage, plunder, plundering, prey, rape, ravage, ravaging, rob, sack, spoil, undo as scheme), milley (blemish, blemish as work, blur, blur as vision, botch, corrupt, corruption, debauch; marring, deflower, despoliation; thousand, disfigure, disfigurement, impair, impairment, mar, muff, murder, ruin, spoil, spoiling, tarnish). (various references)

Pig Latin		espoilday

Portuguese		despojar (bereave, denudate, denude, deplenish, deprive, divest, oust, strip, unclothe), roubar (abstract, bereave, bone, cabbage, embezzle funds, extort money, faked, file, grab-all, holdback, kidnapper, loot, lurcher, make away with oneself, nab, picayune, pick, piratical, plunder, priggish, purloin, rifle, Rob, rustle, screw out of, scrounge, snitch, snoop, steal, strip, swipe, take away, thieve), pilhar (depredate, forage, foray, Harry, loot, marauder, pillage, plunder, prey upon, ravage, Raven, reave, reive, rifle, Rob), espoliar (flea, prey). (various references)

Romanian		despuia (denude, disarray, shear, skin, strip, undress), prãda (flay, fleece, gut, knock off, loot, pillage, plunder, prey, ransack, Raven, reave, Rob, ruin, sack, spoil). (various references)

Russian		грабить (depredate, loot, pill, pillage, plunder, prey, prey upon, ramp, ransack, ravish, reave, reive, robbing, sack). (various references)

Serbo-Croatian		pljačkati (harry, loot, maraud, pillage, plunder, prey on, prey upon, reive, rob), opljačkati (burglarize, burgle, depredate, hold up, pillage, pirate, ransack, rifle, rob, sack, scourge, stick up). (various references)

Spanish		despojar (bereave, denude, divest, rob, skin). (various references)

Swedish		röva (loot, maraud, pirate, plunder, rob), plundra (depredate, forage, foray, gut, Harry, loot, pick, pirate, plunder, ransack, rifle, Rob, sack), beröva (bereave, denude, deprive, deprive of, divest). (various references)

Turkish		yağmalamak (forage, foray, Harry, loot, maraud, pillage, pirate, pluck, plunder, prey on, prey upon, put to the sack, Raven, reave, sack, spoliate, sweep down on), soymak (bare, bark, burglarize, burgle, clean out, decorticate, denude, deplume, disrobe, divest, flay, fleece, heist, hold up, housebreak, knock off, pare, Peel, pluck, plunder, pull off, rifle, rip off, Rob, roll, sack, shave, shear, skin, stick up, strip, unclothe, undress, unrobe). (various references)

Ukranian		розкрадати (depredate, peculate), грабувати (hold up, loot, overrun, pillage, plunder, prey, ransack, rape, reive, scamp, spoliate), оббирати, позбавляти (abridge, bare, denude, deprive, divest, oust, purge, reave, release). (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

Language	Period	Translations
Latin	500 BCE-Modern	popularis, populo, populoque, praeda, praedaberis, praedabuntur, praedandum, praedare, praedaris, praedas, praedati, praedatio, praedationibus, praedatus, praedavit, praedo, spolia, spoliabitis, spoliabitur, spoliabunt, spolians, spoliassent, spoliasset, spoliasti, spoliata, spoliati, spoliatus, spoliaverunt, spoliavit, spolient, spolio. (various references)
Old English	450-1100	forhergian. (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Derivations
	Words beginning with "despoil": despoiled, despoiler, despoilers, despoiling, despoilment, despoilments, despoils. (additional references)
Misspellings
	"Despoil" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: depil, desoil, despain, dispoal, dispoile, espoir, Resipol. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Direct Anagrams: diploes, dipoles, spoiled.
	Words within the letters "d-e-i-l-o-p-s"
	-1 letter: diploe, dipole, dispel, lisped, oldies, pilose, poised, poleis, polies, siloed, sliped, sloped, soiled, spiled.
	-2 letters: deils, delis, diols, dipso, doles, dopes, eidos, idles, idols, isled, lidos, lodes, loped, lopes, oiled, oldie, piled, piles, plied, plies, plods, poise, poled, poles, polis, posed, sidle, siped, slide, slipe, sloid, slope, soldi, soled, solei, solid, speil.
	Words containing the letters "d-e-i-l-o-p-s"
	+1 letter: depolish, despoils, diploses, displode, euploids, implodes, leporids, lopsided, pistoled, ploidies, polished, poolside, sepaloid.
	+2 letters: clupeoids, despoiled, despoiler, dispeople, disploded, displodes, duopolies, ellipsoid, lepidotes, palinodes, pistolled, polarised, polypides, poolsides, spoliated, topsoiled, unspoiled, woodpiles.
	+3 letters: aneuploids, apologised, depletions, depolished, depolishes, despoilers, despoiling, diploidies, diplomates, diplophase, diplotenes, discophile, dispeopled, dispeoples, disposable, ellipsoids, episodical, euploidies, haploidies, hexaploids, lopsidedly, misdevelop, overplaids, pediculous, pedologies, pedologist, pedophiles, petalodies, planetoids, podzolizes, polyamides, polypodies, psalmodies, repolished, ridgepoles, shoplifted, slipformed, sphenoidal, spheroidal, stockpiled, unpolished.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.