SPOIL • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Spoil

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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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WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University

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"Spoil" Quotes from Famous Books

... feel at the present moment will not last. You have too much generosity, too much intellect, to allow it to rest long in your bosom; and deeply as I feel this rebuff, I am not going to be so weak as to let it darken and spoil my whole life. No, my hope is too strong and too reasonable to be killed so easily. I shall come to you again, and again, and again. For I know that with you for a wife and companion my life would be a happy one; ...

— Fan • Henry Harford

... "Crying will only spoil your bright eyes, my little princess," said Trencoss, "and you will have to marry me whether ...

— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy

... Bashti returned with his tribe the same day, grinning and chuckling as he appraised the damage. Only a few grass houses had been damaged by the shells. Only a few coconuts had been chopped down. And as for the slain pigs, lest they spoil, he made of their carcasses a great feast. One shell had knocked a hole through his sea-wall. He enlarged it for a launching-ways, faced the sides of it with dry-fitted coral rock, and gave orders for the building of an additional canoe-house. The only vexation he suffered ...

— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London

... had been driven from the little town of Aljubarrota, the wife of the village baker made herself famous by killing nine Spaniards with her wooden baking shovel—a shovel which may still be seen on the town arms. When all was over Dom Joao dedicated the spoil he had taken in the Castilian king's tent to Our Lady of the Olive Tree at Guimaraes where may still be seen, with many other treasures, a large silver-gilt triptych of the Nativity and one of the silver angels from off the royal altar.[75] Besides this, he had promised if victorious to rebuild ...

— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson

... his frequent visits were in no way a bother to his friend; and when Frau Klaere, with the amiability of a careful hostess, considered his little idiosyncrasies of taste, he could but protest feebly: "Really, dear lady, you spoil me too much! What shall I do if, for instance, I have to go to the ...

— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein

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