despoil

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English despoilen, also despuilen,^[2][3] borrowed from Old French despoillier, also despuillier,^[3][4][2][5] modern French dépouiller,^[3][6][7] from Latin dēspoliō (“to rob, plunder”),^[3][6][4] formed from dē- (“entirely”) and spoliō (“to strip of clothing, rob”),^[6][8][7] from spolium (“skin, hide; arms, armour; booty”).^[6][7] The Latin verb also gave Spanish despojar and Italian dispogliare.^[3][9] In Anglo-Norman the verb is recorded from the early 12th century, with senses from undressing to plundering.^[10] The OED notes that the word was formerly also spelled with dis-, by confusion with words in that prefix.^[3] The noun is borrowed from Old French despoille, a verbal noun from the French verb.^[3][11][12] Hoad takes the verb spoil as partly a shortening of this one.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

To strip of clothes, originally by violence or as robbery: about 1230, in the Ancrene Riwle, a text perhaps composed before 1200.^[3] Etymonline dates the word to about 1200 with the sense "rob, plunder",^[6] and Dictionary.com to 1175–1225.^[13] Barnhart has about 1300,^[8] and Merriam-Webster the 14th century.^[12]

Semantic evolution

Middle English used the verb both for plundering and for stripping someone of clothes.^[2][14] Chaucer has it for despoiling, depriving and disrobing, and Gower for plundering and stripping.^[14] The idea of violence could fall away: in Chaucer's Clerk's Tale it simply means to undress, a use that lasted to about 1700.^[3] A person is the object from 1297, a place from 1393, in Gower, and the word extended to immaterial things about 1400, in Mandeville's Travels.^[3] A sense "to mar, make useless", from before 1400, died out by 1685.^[3][11] Johnson (1755) defined only "to rob; to deprive", with of, quoting Spenser, Milton and Dryden.^[15] The Shorter Oxford now labels the verb literary.^[11] The noun, from Caxton's time, meant booty until 1619 and the act of despoiling, now archaic.^[3][12][11]

Timeline

• c. 1230 – to strip of clothes, by violence (obsolete by 1485).^[3]
• 1297 – to strip a person of possessions; to rob.^[3]
• c. 1300 – to deprive someone of arms, clothes or other material things.^[3]
• c. 1386 – to undress, without violence (obsolete by 1700).^[3]
• 1393 – to plunder a place.^[3]
• before 1400 – to mar, to make useless (obsolete by 1685).^[3]
• c. 1400 – to deprive of immaterial things.^[3]
• 1474 – noun, plunder, booty (obsolete by 1619).^[3]
• 1483 – noun, the act of despoiling.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To strip a place or person of belongings by force; to plunder or pillage: Raiders despoiled the abbey and burned its barns.^[12][16][3]
2. To deprive someone forcibly of something, material or not, with of: The scandal despoiled him of his good name.^[12][3][11]
3. (obsolete, 1230–1700) To strip of clothes or armour; to undress.^[12][3][11]
4. (obsolete, 1400–1685) To make useless; to mar or destroy.^[3][11]

Noun

1. (archaic) The act of despoiling; plundering.^[12][3][11]
2. (obsolete, 1474–1619) Booty, plunder.^[12][3][11]

Word family

• despoiler
• despoilment

Related words

• despoliation
• spoliate
• spoliation
• spoil

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
9. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
10. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
11. ^ a b c d e f g h i Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
13. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
14. ^ a b Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
16. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins