spoil

1. 1.

   (usually plural) valuables taken by violence (especially in war)

   “to the victor belong the spoils of the enemy”

   Broaderstolen property

   plural

2. 2.

   the act of spoiling something by causing damage to it

   “her spoiling my dress was deliberate”

   Synonymsspoilingspoilage

   Broaderinjury
3. 3.

   the act of stripping and taking by force

   Synonymsspoliationspoilationdespoilationdespoilmentdespoliation

   Broaderplundering

Other forms of spoil

plural

spoils·

past tense or participle

spoilt

present participle

spoiling·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about spoil

What does spoil mean?

spoil means "make a mess of, destroy or ruin". That is the primary sense; the word has 11 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in spoil?

spoil has 1 syllable: spoil. In IPA it is /ˈspɔɪl/.

What is another word for spoil?

Close synonyms include botch, bodge, bumble, fumble, botch up. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is spoil a common word?

spoil is banded "Common" — everyday vocabulary in speech and writing. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.