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At one point in Frodo’s journey in The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien depicts an ancient statue overlooking a crossroads: “Its head was gone, and in its place was set in mockery a round rough-hewn stone, rudely painted … in the likeness of a grinning face with one large red eye in the midst of its forehead.” The statue had been vandalized by orcs, but the roots of vandalize have more in common with the name of a Tolkien hero. Vandalize comes from the noun vandal, which was originally capitalized and referred to a member of a Germanic people who lived south of the Baltic Sea and sacked Rome in the year 455 CE. This sacking is what likely led to the use of the lower-case vandal for someone who damages or destroys property. The Late Latin word for such a Vandal was Vandalī, a word probably borrowed from a Germanic verb meaning “wend, turn” that also gave rise to the Old English Ēarendel, the name of a mythological figure that inspired Tolkien’s creation of Eärendil, a mariner who wends his way across the sky of Middle Earth carrying the morning star.
Examples of vandalize in a Sentence
Frederick Dreier, Outside Online, 18 Nov. 2024
Overnight in the 1400 block of Abbott: Someone vandalized a mural in the bathroom area.
—Anne Gelhaus, The Mercury News, 12 Nov. 2024
During the George Floyd protests, various D.C. monuments were vandalized, including the Lincoln Memorial and World War II Memorial, and protesters set fire to the historic St. John’s Episcopal Church in Lafayette Square.
—Conor Murray, Forbes, 4 Nov. 2024
Later, around 12:10 p.m., a statue outside the synagogue was vandalized when a man wrote profanity on it with a marker, police told CNN affiliate KYW.
—Dalia Faheid, CNN, 24 Oct. 2024
See all Example Sentences for vandalize 
Dictionary Entries Near vandalize
Cite this Entry
“Vandalize.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vandalize. Accessed 21 Nov. 2024.
Copy CitationKids Definition
vandalize
verb
Legal Definition
vandalize
transitive verb
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