spoliation

From Late Middle English spoliacioun (“looting, robbery, theft; an instance of this; (ecclesiastical) wrongful deprivation of the emoluments of a benefice due to another”),^[1] from Anglo-Norman spoliacioun, espolïacion, and directly from their etymon Latin spoliātiōn-, the oblique stem of spoliātiō (“plundering, robbing”),^[2] from spoliāre^[3] + -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.”) (possibly related to Proto-Indo-European *(s)pel- (“to rend, tear; to split”)) + -ō (suffix forming regular first-conjugation verbs). The English word was probably also influenced by French spoliation.^[3]

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /spəʊliˈeɪʃn̩/

• Audio (Southern England):

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• (General American) IPA^(key): /spoʊliˈeɪʃən/

• Audio (General American):

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• Rhymes: -eɪʃən
• Hyphenation: spol‧i‧a‧tion

spoliation (countable and uncountable, plural spoliations)

1. (uncountable, archaic) 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.

   Synonyms: deprivation, despoliation, (obsolete) exspoliation, plundering, rapine, (archaic) spoil

   • 1852 January – 1853 April, Charles Kingsley, Jun., “Preface”, in Hypatia: Or, New Foes with an Old Face. […], volume I, London: John W[illiam] Parker and Son, […], published 1853, →OCLC, page ix:

     The weapons of the empire had been […] an unequalled genius for organization, and an uniform system of external law and order. This was generally a real boon to conquered nations, because it substituted a fixed and regular spoliation for the fortuitous and arbitrary miseries of savage warfare: […]

   • 1852 March – 1853 September, Charles Dickens, “In Chancery”, in Bleak House, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1853, →OCLC, page 4:

     How many people out of the suit, Jarndyce and Jarndyce has stretched forth its unwholesome hand to spoil and corrupt, would be a very wide question. […] In trickery, evasion, procrastination, spoliation, botheration, under false pretences of all sorts, there are influences that can never come to good.

   • 1897 March 1, John Marshall Harlan, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States (delivering the court’s opinion), “Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad Company v. Chicago”, in J[ohn] C[handler] Bancroft Davis, reporter, United States Reports: Cases Adjudged in the Supreme Court at October Term, 1896 […], volume 166, New York; Albany, N.Y.: Banks & Brothers, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 235:

     In Davidson v. New Orleans, above cited [96 U.S. 97 (1878)], it was said that a statute declaring in terms, without more, that the full and exclusive title to a described piece of land belonging to one person should be and is hereby vested in another person, would, if effectual, deprive the former of his property without due process of law, within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. […] Such an enactment would not receive judicial sanction in any country having a written constitution distributing the powers of government among three coördinate departments, and committing to the judiciary, expressly or by implication, authority to enforce the provisions of such constitution. It would be treated not as an exertion of legislative power, but as a sentence—an act of spoliation.

   • 1989, W. Michael Reisman, “Harnessing International Law to Restrain and Recapture Indigenous Spoliations”, in American Journal of International Law‎^[1], volume 83, Washington, D.C.: American Society of International Law, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 26 April 2019, page 56:

     The ritual condemnation of foreign corporations' spoliations of the resources of developing countries and their elevation to the level of international concern have obscured the problem of spoliations by national officials of the wealth of the states of which they are temporary custodians. […] In some cases, absconding officials have left the economies of their countries ransacked and destroyed.

2. (by extension)
   1. (uncountable) The action of destroying or ruining; destruction, ruin.
      • [1832], L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “The Knife”, in Heath’s Book of Beauty. M.DCCC.XXXIII. […], London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman, […] [for Charles Heath], →OCLC, page 121:

        Marks of violence were visible in every part; a cupboard had been forced open, and the contents of a chest of drawers were scattered about the room. 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.

      • 1955 July, D. S. Barrie, “Railways of the Bridgend District”, in The Railway Magazine, London: Tothill Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 449:

        There is much sad evidence, too, of the spoliation and dereliction of vanished industry: tips, slag-heaps and derelict colliery-screens among which the ubiquitous, nomad mountain sheep graze unconcernedly.

   2. (Christianity, ecclesiastical, chiefly historical)
      1. (uncountable) The action of an incumbent (“holder of an ecclesiastical benefice”) wrongfully depriving another of the emoluments of a benefice.
         • 1726, John Ayliffe, “Of Ecclesiastical Benefices, the Division of Them, &c.”, in Parergon Juris Canonici Anglicani: Or, A Commentary, by Way of Supplement to the Canons and Constitutions of the Church of England. […], London: […] D. Leach, and sold by John Walthoe […], →OCLC, page 117:

           A Benefice is ſaid to be vacant de Facto, and not de Jure, vvhen the Poſſeſſion thereof is loſt by Spoliation or Intruſion, and the like: […]

         • 1768, William Blackstone, “Of the Cognizance of Private Wrongs”, in Commentaries on the Laws of England, book III (Of Private Wrongs), Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 91:

           Spoliation is an injury done by one clerk or incumbent to another, in taking the fruits of his benefice vvithout any right thereunto, but under a pretended title. It is remedied by a decree to account for the profits ſo taken. […] [A] patron firſt preſents A to a benefice, vvho is inſtituted and inducted thereto; and then, upon pretence of a vacancy, the ſame patron preſents B to the ſame living, and he alſo obtains inſtitution and induction. Novv if A diſputes the fact of the vacancy, then that clerk vvho is kept out of the profits of the living, vvhichever it may be, may ſue the other in the ſpiritual court for ſpoliation, or taking the profits of his benefice.

      2. (countable, law) A lawsuit brought or writ issued by an incumbent against another, claiming that the latter has wrongfully taken the emoluments of a benefice.
         • 1667, [John Rastell], “Spoliation”, in [William Rastell], transl., Les Termes de la Ley: Or, Certain Difficult and Obscure Words and Terms of the Common Laws and Statutes of this Realm Now in Use Expounded and Explained. […], new edition, London: […] John Streater, James Flesher, and Henry Twyford, assigns of Richard Atkyns and Edward Atkyns Esquires, →OCLC, page 566, column 2:

           [W]here one ſaith to the Patron, that his Clerk is dead, whereupon he preſents another: there the firſt Incumbent, who was ſuppoſed to be dead, may have a Spoliation againſt the other.

   3. (law)
      1. (uncountable) The intentional destruction of, or tampering with, a document so as to impair its evidentiary value.
         • 1998 May 11, [Joyce Luther] Kennard, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of California, “Cedars-Sinai Medical Center v. Superior Court (Bowyer)”, in Supreme Court of California Resources, Robert Crown Law Library, Stanford Law School (18 Cal. 4th 1, 74 Cal. Rptr. 2d 248, 954 P. 2d 511)‎^[2], archived from the original on 23 May 2025:

           Plaintiff, a child injured during birth, alleges that defendant hospital intentionally destroyed evidence relevant to his malpractice action against the hospital. He seeks to bring a separate tort cause of action against defendant hospital for its alleged intentional spoliation—that is, intentional destruction or suppression—of evidence. […] [W]e conclude that when the alleged intentional spoliation is committed by a party to the underlying cause of action to which the evidence is relevant and when the spoliation is or reasonably should have been discovered before the conclusion of the underlying litigation, it is preferable to reply on existing nontort remedies rather than creating a tort remedy.

      3. (international law, uncountable) 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.

         Spoliation of Jewish property by Nazi authorities occurred on a large scale during World War II.

         • 1945 December 14 (date delivered), Samuel Harris, assistant trial counsel for the United States, “Twentieth Day, Friday, 14 December 1945, Afternoon Session”, in Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 14 November 1945 – 1 October 1946, volume III (Official Text in the English Language), Nuremberg, Bavaria: Secretariat of the International Military Tribunal, published 1947, →OCLC, page 574:

           We propose at this time to present evidence disclosing what the conspirators intended to do with conquered territories, called by them Lebensraum, after they had succeeded in overpowering the victims of their aggressions. We have broadly divided this subject into two categories: Germanization and spoliation. […] By spoliation, we mean the plunder of public and private property and, in general, the exploitation of the people and the natural resources of occupied countries.

         • 2017, Derek Fincham, “Intentional Destruction and Spoliation of Cultural Heritage under International Criminal Law”, in Davis Journal of International Law and Policy‎^[3], volume 23, number 2, Davis, Calif.: Students of the School of Law, University of California, Davis, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 171:

           [A]s culture continues to suffer spoliation at the hands of individuals who are not part of typical armed conflicts, and as minority and other groups continue to see the destruction of their culture, the international legal community may need to rethink their hesitancy to apply the tools of criminal law to cultural genocide.

      4. (nautical, historical, uncountable) The government-sanctioned action or practice of plundering neutral ships at sea; (countable) an instance of this.
         • 1846 April 23–24, John M[iddleton] Clayton, “French Spoliations. Speech of John M. Clayton, of Delaware, in the Senate, April 23 and 24, 1846.”, in [Francis Preston] Blair and [John C.] Rives, editors, Appendix to the Congressional Globe, […] (United States Senate, 29th Congress, 1st session), number 54 (New Series), Washington, D.C.:  […] Blair & Rives, →OCLC, page 857, column 2:

           Immediately after the rupture with Great Britain in February, 1793, France, by waging war with nearly all Europe, and while oppressed by famine and the starving policy of England, commenced her spoliations on our commerce. Our ships were plundered as well by the armed vessels of France as by innumerable privateers, equipped for the purpose of supplying France with provisions from the only resource left her, the commerce of neutral nations.

Not to be confused with spoilation (“spoiling or ruining, destruction”).

• writ of spoliation

• looting on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• tampering with evidence on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• spoliation (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “spoliation”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “spoliation”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

• isopointal, positional

• Audio:

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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.