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Spoil   /spɔɪl/   Listen
Spoil

verb
(past & past part. spoilt or spoiled; pres. part. spoiling)
1.
Make a mess of, destroy or ruin.  Synonyms: ball up, blow, bobble, bodge, bollix, bollix up, bollocks, bollocks up, botch, botch up, bumble, bungle, flub, fluff, foul up, fuck up, fumble, louse up, mess up, mishandle, muck up, muff, screw up.  "The pianist screwed up the difficult passage in the second movement"
2.
Become unfit for consumption or use.  Synonym: go bad.
3.
Alter from the original.  Synonym: corrupt.
4.
Treat with excessive indulgence.  Synonyms: baby, cocker, coddle, cosset, featherbed, indulge, mollycoddle, pamper.  "Let's not mollycoddle our students!"
5.
Hinder or prevent (the efforts, plans, or desires) of.  Synonyms: baffle, bilk, cross, foil, frustrate, queer, scotch, thwart.  "Foil your opponent"
6.
Have a strong desire or urge to do something.  Synonym: itch.  "He is spoiling for a fight"
7.
Destroy and strip of its possession.  Synonyms: despoil, plunder, rape, violate.
8.
Make imperfect.  Synonyms: deflower, impair, mar, vitiate.
noun
1.
(usually plural) valuables taken by violence (especially in war).
2.
The act of spoiling something by causing damage to it.  Synonyms: spoilage, spoiling.
3.
The act of stripping and taking by force.  Synonyms: despoilation, despoilment, despoliation, spoilation, spoliation.



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"Spoil" Quotes from Famous Books



... of the prairie, she smiles to her sire—the sun, Robed in the wealth of her wheat-lands, gift of her mothering soil, Affluence knocks at her gateways, opulence waits to be won. Nuggets of gold are her acres, yielding and yellow with spoil, Dream of the hungry millions, dawn of the food-filled age, Over the starving tale of want her fingers have turned the page; Nations will nurse at her storehouse, and God ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson

... told me all at once, that they were French Protestants lately arrived in Great-Britain, and that finding themselves of too Gay a Humour for my Country, they applyed themselves to me in order to compose them for British Conversation. I told them, that to oblige them I would soon spoil their Mirth; upon which I admitted a whole Shole of them, who, after having taken a Survey of the Place, came out in a very good Order, and with Looks entirely English. I afterwards put in a Dutch ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... over him with his hatchet, and cut off his head and quartered him. Philip had one remarkable hand, which was much scarred by the explosion of a pistol. This hand was given to Alderman, who shot him, as his share of the spoil. Alderman preserved it in rum, and carried it around the country as a show, "and accordingly," says Captain Church, "he got many a penny by it." We would gladly doubt the statement, if we could, that the head of this ill-fated ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... up the petticoat as though she would put it away; but presently she laid it down again and smoothed it with quick, nervous fingers. "Can't you talk sense and leave my clothes alone? If Jake comes, and I'm not here, and he wants to make a fuss, and spoil everything, and won't wait, you give him this petticoat. You put it in his arms. I bet you'll have the laugh on ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker

... we disdain him, we look at him with contempt; nay, more, instead of making any effort to cultivate his mind, we try to spoil it by ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various


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