despoliation

noun

de·​spo·​li·​a·​tion di-ˌspō-lē-ˈā-shən 

: the action or process of despoiling : spoliation

Examples of despoliation in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

For that reason, the Abraham Accords lie in tatters - a despoliation very deliberately aimed at by Iran and Hamas via October 7. —Melik Kaylan, Forbes, 30 Sep. 2024

Landscape exists to register ideas, like dispossession or despoliation, but not feelings. —Philip Kennicott, Washington Post, 5 Oct. 2023

Related Christopher Ciccone watched from the Radio City green room, thinking of his father and grandmother, who, like millions of other TV viewers, would see the show at home and be stunned by what appeared to be the on-air despoliation of a bride — by herself. —Mary Gabriel, Rolling Stone, 27 Sep. 2023

Millions of investors are participating in the despoliation. —Ian Frazier, The New York Review of Books, 19 Jan. 2023

Environmentalists, concerned about the despoliation of nature, have been lobbying for the concrete to be removed and the river rewilded, with new marshes and wetlands to green the city and mitigate flooding. —Michael Kimmelman, New York Times, 10 Nov. 2022

The book’s scope is comprehensive, documenting the grandeur and the despoliation of the region’s geography and the lives and spaces of its poorest—and richest—residents. —Richard Rothman, Harper's Magazine, 15 Apr. 2021

And yet the saboteurs of Earth First!, the Animal Liberation Front, and the ELF no more launched a mass movement against the despoliation of the earth than did the responsible statesmen of the Sierra Club. —Benjamin Kunkel, The New Republic, 26 May 2021

Trump also may have a motive for his environmental policies — enriching timber companies and the oil and gas industry, despoliation of the environment being merely collateral damage. —Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 25 Nov. 2020

Word History

Etymology

Late Latin despoliation-, despoliatio, from despoliare

First Known Use

circa 1657, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for despoliation

• abbreviation
• abomination
• acceleration
• accentuation
• accommodation
• accreditation
• acculturation
• accumulation
• acetylation
• adjudication
• administration
• adulteration

Kids Definition

despoliation

noun

de·​spo·​li·​a·​tion di-ˌspō-lē-ˈā-shən 

: the action or process of despoiling