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1. Make a mess of, destroy or ruin
   "I spoilt the dinner and we had to eat out"
   - botch, bodge [Brit], bumble, fumble, botch up, muff, blow, flub [N. Amer], screw up, ball up, muck up, bungle, fluff, bobble [N. Amer], mishandle, louse up, foul up, mess up, bugger, balls up
    
2. Become unfit for consumption or use
   "the meat must be eaten before it spoils"
   - go bad
    
3. Alter from the original
   - corrupt
    
4. Treat with excessive indulgence
   "grandparents often spoil the children"
   - pamper, featherbed, cosset, cocker, baby, coddle, mollycoddle, indulge
    
5. Hinder or prevent (the efforts, plans, or desires) of
   "spoil your opponent"
   - thwart, queer, scotch, foil, cross, frustrate, baffle, bilk
    
6. Have a strong desire or urge to do something
   "He is spoiling for a fight"
   - itch
    
7. Destroy and strip of its possession
   "The soldiers spoilt the beautiful country"
   - rape, despoil, violate, plunder
    
8. Make imperfect
   "nothing spoilt her beauty"
   - mar, impair, deflower, vitiate

1. (usually plural) valuables taken by violence (especially in war)
   "to the victor belong the spoils of the enemy"
    
2. The act of spoiling something by causing damage to it
   - spoiling, spoilage
    
3. The act of stripping and taking by force
   - spoliation, spoilation, despoilation, despoilment, despoliation

Derived forms: spoils, spoilt, spoiling

See also: spoilage, spoiler, spoliation

Type of: damage, decay, desire, destroy, do by, fail, forbid, foreclose, forestall, go wrong, handle, injury, miscarry, modify, pillage, pillaging, plundering, preclude, prevent, ruin, spifflicate, spiflicate, stolen property, treat, want

Encyclopedia: Spoil