SPOILT • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Spoilt

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verb

Spoil v. t. (past & past part. spoilt or spoiled; pres. part. spoiling)

To plunder; to strip by violence; to pillage; to rob; with of before the name of the thing taken; as, to spoil one of his goods or possessions. "Ye shall spoil the Egyptians." "My sons their old, unhappy sire despise, Spoiled of his kingdom, and deprived of eyes."

To seize by violence; to take by force; to plunder. "No man can enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man."

To cause to decay and perish; to corrupt; to vitiate; to mar. "Spiritual pride spoils many graces."

To render useless by injury; to injure fatally; to ruin; to destroy; as, to spoil paper; to have the crops spoiled by insects; to spoil the eyes by reading.

Spoil v. i. (past & past part. spoilt or spoiled; pres. part. spoiling)

To practice plunder or robbery. "Outlaws, which, lurking in woods, used to break forth to rob and spoil."

To lose the valuable qualities; to be corrupted; to decay; as, fruit will soon spoil in warm weather.

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Etymology of 'Spoilt'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Spoilt" Quotes from Famous Books

... future? Out of the corner of his eye he saw Cuningham, neat, amiable, and self-possessed, sitting in a corner by Lady Findon, who smiled and chatted incessantly. And it was clear to him that Welby was the spoilt child of the room. Wherever he went men and women grouped themselves about him; there was a constant eagerness to capture him, an equal reluctance to let ...

— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... the insect is seeking, namely, the young larva of the Mason-bee enclosed in its cocoon. Their contents consist of the refuse so often met with in old Chalicodoma-nests: liquid honey left unemployed, because the egg has perished; spoilt provisions, sometimes mildewed, or sometimes a tarry mass; a dead larva, stiffened into a brown cylinder; the shrivelled corpse of a perfect insect, which lacked the strength to effect its deliverance; dust and rubbish which has come ...

— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre

... fifty—that I swear! Not a word yet of real business—not one word! He may be a poet. I daresay he is. He's a conceited ass. Why, even Bryany was better than that lot. Only Sachs turned Bryany out. I like Sachs. But he won't open his mouth.... 'Capitalist'! Well, they spoilt my appetite, and I hate champagne!... The poet hates money.... No, he 'hates the thought of money.' And she's changing her mind the whole blessed time! A month ago she'd have gone over to Pilgrim, and the poet too, like a house-a-fire!...Photographed ...

— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett

... she's pretty. Her hair is wonderful, an' she's got them big brown eyes an' pink cheeks. I'm proud as Tophet of her. If it warn't fur Abbie I figger the three captains an' I would have the child clean spoilt. But Abbie's always kept a firm hand on us an' prevented us from puttin' nonsensical notions into Delight's head. Much of the way she's turned out is due to Abbie's common sense. Well, the girl's a mighty nice one," concluded Zenas Henry. ...

— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett

... medieval poetry one of the chief sources of the psychology in which it took delight,—an original and authoritative representation of the beginning and growth of the passion of love, not yet spoilt by the pedantry which later displayed itself unrestrained in the following generations of amatory poets, and which took its finest form in the poem of Guillaume de Lorris; but yet at the same time giving a starting-point and some encouragement to the later pedants, by its study ...

— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker

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