spoil

verb spoils · spoiling · spoiled · spoilt

1. archaic, transitive To strip (someone who has been killed or defeated) of arms or armour.
2. archaic, transitive To strip or deprive (someone) of possessions; to rob, despoil. All that herde hym wer amased and sayde: ys nott this he that spoylled them whych called on this name in Jerusalem?
3. ambitransitive, archaic To plunder, pillage (a city, country etc.). Outlaws, which, lurking in woods, used to break forth to rob and spoil.
4. obsolete, transitive To carry off (goods) by force; to steal. No man can enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man.
5. transitive To ruin; to damage in such a way as to make undesirable or unusable. All this sun spoils me for vacations in the far North.
6. transitive To ruin the character of, by overindulgence; to coddle or pamper to excess.
7. intransitive To go bad; to become sour or rancid; to decay. Make sure you put the milk back in the fridge; otherwise it will spoil.
8. transitive To render (a ballot) invalid by deliberately defacing. Dr Jonathan Grant (Letters, April 22) feels the best way to show his disaffection with political parties over Iraq is to spoil his ballot paper.
9. transitive To prematurely reveal major events or the ending of (a story etc.); to ruin (a surprise) by exposing ahead of time as a spoiler. These include a brief but showstopping (and trailer-revealed) scene where Vanellope crashes a Disney Princess reunion, packed with gags and references that should send both young and old fans into paroxysms of glee. The princess confab also leads into a scene featuring Vanellope and the cast of Slau
10. To reduce the lift generated by an airplane or wing by deflecting air upwards, usually with a spoiler.
11. intransitive To be very eager (for something). Senator Toombs who announced his readiness to whip Great Britain [...] has been spoiling for a fight ever since

Similar: ball up, blight, bumble, botch, bugger up, bungle, contaminate, corrupt, crab, deprave, disrupt, disturb

noun spoils

1. Plunder taken from an enemy or victim. Thoſe thouſand horſe shall ſweat with martiall ſpoyle Of conquered kingdomes, and of Cities ſackt, […]
2. archaic The act of taking plunder from an enemy or victim; spoliation, pillage, rapine. This countrey ſwarmes with vile outragious men, That liue by rapine and by lawleſſe ſpoile, Fit ſouldiers for the wicked Tamburlaine.
3. uncountable Material (such as rock or earth) removed in the course of an excavation, or in mining or dredging. Tailings. Such material could be utilised somewhere else. In view of the decline in freight traffic, it was strange to hear from Mr. Lambert that there is "a continuing problem of supplying, particularly for the civil engineer, the number of wagons required for carrying construction materials and spoil for various works."