Thesaurus.com
Dictionary.com
Definitions

despoil

[dih-spoil] / dɪˈspɔɪl /


Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

Today, that environmental perspective, that sense of how we humans continue to despoil our planet in an ever more fossil-fuelized and dangerous fashion, is simply inescapable.

From Salon Dec. 9, 2023

He calmly rejects criticism that his vision would despoil the biosphere.

From Los Angeles Times Mar. 1, 2023

The project would despoil a mostly pristine wilderness area.

From Seattle Times Dec. 7, 2022

That measure is opposed by members of the local Mura tribe, who say mining would despoil the natural habitat upon which they depend.

From Reuters Mar. 23, 2022

Yet we have made the vow; and though no other human generation hath done other than despoil, perhaps we shall be the first.

From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson

Unfortunately, your visit to Glacier NP was an example of exactly the kind of behavior that despoils and degrades our parks and wildernesses.

From New York Times Sep. 20, 2016

There are many benefits of not selling water in disposable bottles in national parks, including reducing trash at parks, carbon emissions and the litter that despoils our parks, landscape and waterways.

From Washington Post Jul. 24, 2015

Roger is jealous when Jane flirts with Manishewitz Jr.—“I thought you liked the crabs rangoon here!”—and despoils her new, Roger-free apartment accordingly.

From Slate May 14, 2012

History's biggest oil spill despoils the French shoreline Like a grotesque, hook-shaped inkblot, the oil spread menacingly across the water.

From Time Magazine Archive

"Far from accepting the property of individuals society despoils them of it, simply converting the usurpation into a veritable right, the enjoyment of it into proprietorship."

From The Ancient Regime by John Durand

Metaphors may have no place at a concentration camp, but it’s hard to look at this beautiful enclosed space and not see it, perversely, as the most despoiled of Edens.

From Los Angeles Times Dec. 14, 2023

Playing the last days of Romanian communism as frenzied farce, Lucian Pintilie’s “The Oak” is set in a world so despoiled a Hieronymus Bosch landscape might seem bucolic by comparison.

From New York Times Apr. 25, 2023

Too much of Seattle has been despoiled by the greed and power of developers.

From Seattle Times Feb. 18, 2022

They despoiled the building with their urine and feces.

From Washington Post Dec. 16, 2021

Because he was a good man and our faithful friend, therefore hast thou despoiled his wife.

From Medieval English Nunneries c. 1275 to 1535 by Eileen Power

Miners hauled in hydraulic equipment to dig and dredge and strip the mountains, polluting the runoff so badly that in 1874, the flatlanders who depended on that water went to court to stop the despoiling.

From Los Angeles Times Jan. 11, 2025

Plastic, along with other litter, is also despoiling the landscape and polluting our waterways.

From Seattle Times Dec. 7, 2023

Residents of Papua New Guinea have accused the mining company Rio Tinto of violating their human rights by despoiling the land where they live.

From New York Times Dec. 9, 2022

A global explosion of disposable plastic, which is made from oil and gas, is increasing carbon emissions, despoiling the world's oceans, harming wildlife and contaminating the food chain.

From Reuters Feb. 18, 2022

But in the background of all the conversations among the visitors to the island was indignation at the despoiling of the roads they had traveled.

From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson




Vocabulary lists containing despoil


Vocabulary.com logo
by dictionary.com

Dictionary.com's Learning Companion

Go beyond just looking up words.
Remember them forever with VocabTrainer.

Start training