despoil Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. verb steal goods; take as spoils
    pillage; strip; plunder; foray; rifle; loot; reave; ransack.
    • During the earthquake people looted the stores that were deserted by their owners
  2. verb destroy and strip of its possession
    plunder; violate; spoil; rape.
    • The soldiers raped the beautiful country

WordNet

De*spoil" transitive verb
Etymology
OF. despoiller, F. dépouiller, L. despoliare, despoliatum; de- + spoliare to strip, rob, spolium spoil, booty. Cf. Spoil, Despoliation.
Wordforms
imperfect & past participle Despoiled ; present participle & verbal noun Despoiling
Definitions
  1. To strip, as of clothing; to divest or unclothe. Obs. Chaucer.
  2. To deprive for spoil; to plunder; to rob; to pillage; to strip; to divest; -- usually followed by of.
    The clothed earth is then bare, Despoiled is the summer fair. Gower.
    A law which restored to them an immense domain of which they had been despoiled. Macaulay.
    Despoiled of innocence, of faith, of bliss. Milton.
    Syn. -- To strip; deprive; rob; bereave; rifle.
De*spoil" noun
Definitions
  1. Spoil. Obs. Wolsey.

Webster 1913