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Spoil   /spɔɪl/   Listen
Spoil

noun
1.
(usually plural) valuables taken by violence (especially in war).
2.
The act of spoiling something by causing damage to it.  Synonyms: spoilage, spoiling.
3.
The act of stripping and taking by force.  Synonyms: despoilation, despoilment, despoliation, spoilation, spoliation.



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"Spoil" Quotes from Famous Books



... time—not cold as at first. The dish in which the chops and potatoes are baked must be as neat looking as possible, as it has to be sent to the table; turning the potatoes out would, of course, spoil their appearance. Those who have never tasted this dish have no idea how delightful it is. While the chops are baking the gravy drips from them among the potatoes, ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette

... not consider himself a boy, I assure you; he is one-and-twenty, and ever since he has gone to Oxford he thinks himself of great consequence. I dare say we spoil him among us, as he is our only brother now. If Frank had lived," and here Bessie sighed, "he would have been five-and-twenty by this time; but he died four years ago. It was such a blow to poor father and mother; he was so good and clever, and he was studying for a ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... a good deal of him; Ramsay said he had always found him a very polite man, and that he treated him with great respect, which he did very sincerely. I said I worshipped him. ROBERTSON. 'But some of you spoil him; you should not worship him; you should worship no man.' BOSWELL. 'I cannot help worshipping him, he is so much superiour to other men.' ROBERTSON. In criticism, and in wit in conversation, he is no doubt very excellent; but in other respects he is not above ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell

... "In the first place, you did not make such a quantity of it; then you did not try to get it white. Furthermore, you were content to take it in cakes. Making cane-sugar is, however, easy enough if one is careful and knows the exact way to do it. There is plenty of opportunity to spoil it—I'll admit that; but it is seldom that a batch of our sugar goes back on us. We have fine chemists who watch every step of the process and who constantly test samples of the liquid at every stage into which it passes ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett

... not to say piqued, by this curious reticence; he begged hard for names; but Medhurst was adamant. "No, no," he replied; "we detectives have our own just pride in our profession. If I told you now, you would probably spoil all by some premature action. You are too open and impulsive! I will mention this alone: Colonel Clay will be shortly in Paris, and before long will begin from that city a fresh attempt at defrauding you, ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen

... Starling thought Diana to be vexed, or perhaps in a state of vexed indecision about him. And in addition, she was a little anxious herself, lest another letter should come and somehow reach the hands it was meant for. Having gone so far already, Mrs. Starling did not mean to spoil or lose her work for want of a few finishing touches. She watched the post office as never in her life, for any cause, ...
— Diana • Susan Warner

... see any, and a few other tools, which might be highly serviceable if I could land. To all these I added an old sail, to make a covering for my goods and artillery against the weather. Thus furnished and equipped, having secured my hatches on board, and everything that might spoil by wet, I set out, with a God's speed, on my expedition, committing myself once more to Providence and the main ocean, and proceeding the same way I went the ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock

... itself for fulfilment like a vow. It was a vow to cover not merely one offense, but many—all the long years of nameless, unrecorded irritations, ignored but never allayed, culminating in the act by which this man had robbed him; robbed him uselessly, robbed him not to enjoy the spoil, but ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King

... more ye be holpen and stayed— Stayed by a friend in the hour of toil, Sing the heretical song I have made— His be the labour and yours be the spoil. Win by his aid and the aid of disown— He travels ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling

... holding a great treasure, all in ducats, which Peter Unticare and two more stuffed into their garments, as many as they could carry. But Foxe would not touch them, saying that it was his liberty and theirs he sought, and not to make a spoil of the wicked treasure of the infidels. Yet these words did not sink into their hearts, though they had no good of ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang

... to the 'ouse if thee can eat un, thee knows thic," answered Nancy; "but dinner'll be ready at twelve, and thee best not spoil un." ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris

... random; and the feeling that he had done so, was like striking a dagger into his own heart. His companion, without farther answer, resumed the oars, and pulled lustily till they arrived at the island and the castle. The servants received the produce of their spoil, and the two fishers, turning from each other in silence, went ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... mingled with the stagnant air of the streets and attracted swarms and clouds of ravens and crows until the walls and roofs were black with them. And round about the wall encircling the town sat strange, large, outlandish birds from far away with beaks eager for spoil and expectantly crooked claws; and they sat there and looked down with their tranquil greedy eyes as if only waiting for the unfortunate town to turn ...
— Mogens and Other Stories - Mogens; The Plague At Bergamo; There Should Have Been Roses; Mrs. Fonss • Jens Peter Jacobsen

... do, it will surely come to the ears of the first-year boys that we are onto their game. Then they may change their idea and be up to some dodge that we can't fathom. I guess we four can spoil their plans." ...
— Frank Roscoe's Secret • Allen Chapman

... Small holes where the stitches are to come, have first to be pierced in the material with the pricker, from the right side, for the needle to pass through. In soft stuffs, this is unnecessary, but in brocaded materials, and in plush and leather, where every prick shows and would often spoil the whole effect, ...
— Encyclopedia of Needlework • Therese de Dillmont

... blood, thou man of might, Thy soul shall ravin, BENJAMIN.[14] Thou wolf by day, thou wolf by night, Rushing through slaughter, spoil, and sin; Thine eagle's beak and vulture's wing Shall curse ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various

... would naturally excite indignation and a discontented spirit, such as sometimes will lead to insubordination on the part of the crew, followed by the free use of handspikes, rope's ends, and manacles, on the part of the officers, could repress the spirits of Jonas Silvernail, spoil his jokes, or lessen the volume of his hearty and sonorous laugh. Jonas was a native of Hudson, in New York; a young, active, intelligent sailor, who, always good-humored, was never more happy than when singing a sea song, spinning a merry ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... conquest of a district, probably part of Babylonia, watered by a broad river and wooded with palms, spearmen on foot in combat with Assyrian horsemen, castles besieged, long lines of prisoners, and beasts of burden carrying away the spoil. Amongst various animals brought as tribute to the conquerors could be distinguished a lion led by a chain. There were no remains whatever of the superstructure which once rose above the colossi, guarding ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... sure you wouldn't like that; nobody would. No, I can't say the prospect of having him here as my guest allures me, but of course, if you say it must be done, I'm ready to sacrifice myself. Only I warn you it will spoil everything for me to have him here prancing about ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, March 21, 1917 • Various

... with beating a child to excess; spare the rod and spoil the child, says the Jewish lawgiver; but where slavery does not exist, the rod is not to be used to that extent, and it does not improve even slaves. No; as in the army and in the navy, it hardens culprits, and very seldom indeed acts ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle

... the wind" of noisy magpies, or other birds that might spoil sport by alarming the game, was not less desirable than to be on the "lee-side" of the game itself, that the hunter's presence might not be betrayed by the scent. "In the wind of," thus signifies not to windward of, but to leeward of — that is, in the wind that comes ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... raised, whether with reason or not we do not know, for no records were left; all we do know is that the 'restorers' of the day took Wren's roof off, removed his beautiful windows, inserted a new and larger cupola, and generally did their best to spoil his work. It is only necessary to compare the old pictures of the Sheldonian with its present state to see how in this case, as in so many others, Oxford's architectural glories have suffered from our insane ...
— The Oxford Degree Ceremony • Joseph Wells

... be that kind of a boot. Now promise not to talk about it for a year and a day—not even to me—and at the end of that time, why we'll all go and see what's in it. No," he said, "you mustn't go to look at it every now and then—that would spoil the charm. Let me see. This is the twenty-eighth—a year and a day—hum." And he made his calculations. Then he said: "By the way, Mary, don't you and the children ever get hungry between meals? If you were to take bread ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... of the original grantee of his Grace's pensions was in giving his hand to the work, and partaking the spoil with a prince who plundered a part of the national church of his time and country. Mine was in defending the whole of the national church of my own time and my own country, and the whole of the national churches ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education

... continued, "when you think o' the fuss they make about ostriches, killin' em off by hundreds for the sake o' their feathers that'll string out and spoil in one hard rainstorm,—an' all the time lettin' useful porcupines run round with their quills on, why I can't hardly understand it, without milliners have found out jest how good they do last, ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... as these words By me are utter'd, teach them even so To those who live that life, which is a race To death: and when thou writ'st them, keep in mind Not to conceal how thou hast seen the plant, That twice hath now been spoil'd. This whoso robs, This whoso plucks, with blasphemy of deed Sins against God, who for his use alone Creating hallow'd it. For taste of this, In pain and in desire, five thousand years And upward, the first soul did yearn for him, Who punish'd in ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... relations quietly on shore. I had been very happy with the La Mottes, but still they were strangers. My kind aunt never seemed tired of trying to find out what would please me. She had done something to spoil me as a boy— it appeared as if there was a great probability of her spoiling me as a man. We had much to talk about. I told her of my falling in with the old lady at Plymouth, and of my visit to my grandmother's tomb. I found ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston

... Martha, "if people would but think what they're doing when they spoil children! Poor Miss Rosy, but she is naughty! Has it ...
— Rosy • Mrs. Molesworth

... step that was heard on the staircase; I trembled lest they should interrupt me in my preparations, and should thus spoil my intended surprise. But no!—see everything ready: the lighted stove murmurs gently, the little lamp burns upon the table, and a bottle of oil for it is provided on the shelf. The chimney-doctor is gone. Now my fear lest ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre

... to keep it silent. How he longed to impart to his chum the good tidings that would greet him when he reached home! But he must not spoil Louise's pleasure by telling the story of ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett

... Mahomet, Harlequin, Pierrot, Scapin, Blaise and Babette. They have come from all parts, from Greece and Rome and the lands of Faery, to dance together. What a fine thing a fancy ball is, and how delicious to be a great King for an hour or a famous Princess! There is nothing to spoil the pleasure. No need to act up to your costume, nor ...
— Child Life In Town And Country - 1909 • Anatole France

... critical part of the molding operation—that of lifting the cope from the drag. It is here that the amateur often becomes discouraged, as the sand is liable to fall out of the cope and spoil the mold; but with a little practice and patience the molder can lift the cope every time without breaking it, as shown ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... laugh. That would spoil the picture. And Mrs. Sandford and Preston will make everything else right. Come and see ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner

... concluded about the middle of July, and after negociations which lasted for three months, a treaty called the "peace of Vienna" was concluded. The articles of this treaty were the cession of Saltzburg and other territories of the Rhenish confederation to France; Cracow, and part of the Austrian spoil of Poland, to the duchy of Warsaw; and another small portion of it to Russia, Napoleon did not stop here in his attempts to ally himself with Austria: regardless of his union with the faithful Josephine, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... Undoubtedly, whether on a large or on a small scale, whether it concern the whole plan of a war or of a campaign, or merely the question of a single military position, the best way to compel an unwilling foe to action, and to spoil his waiting game which is so onerous to the would-be assailant, is to attack him elsewhere, to cut short his resources, and make his position untenable by exhaustion. "This has pleased us," Nelson wrote; "if we make these red-hot gentlemen hungry, ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... of Abbot Samson more than tongue can tell. Not the spoil of victory, only the glorious toil of battle, can be theirs who really govern. An insurrection of the Monks. Behave better, ye remiss Monks, and thank Heaven for such an Abbot. (p. 124.)—Worn down with incessant ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle

... same reason which is seen in the lower kind of love; but I mean according to another reason similar to that which happens to those who love truth and goodness, which shows itself when they are angry against those who adulterate it, spoil it, or corrupt it, or who in other ways would treat it with indignity, as has been the case with those who have brought themselves to suffer death and pains, and to being ignominiously treated by ignorant ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno

... to spoil your illusions, my good Joe; but this undertaking of his is nothing more nor less than the act of a madman. He ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne

... to be a spoil-sport, Bob, however, did not approve of the plan. Consequently, it was with relief he beheld a large, red-faced man, in overalls and jumper, enter the station master's office, exclaiming as he ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster

... the gold and other property which had been taken on that occasion. They asserted that the whole blame of that transaction was owing to Cuitlahuatzin, the successor of Montezuma, who had received the spoil and sacrificed the prisoners. Cortes found that very little satisfaction could be got from them for the past, yet wishing if possible to make them now our friends, he earnestly entreated the Tlascalan chiefs to prohibit their ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr

... mind, he was accustomed to spend the dinner-hour in what might be called extramural studies—rowing over to the island below the bridge against the tide and coming back gloriously with the current; assisting the salmon-fishers to draw their nets and gather the silver spoil; in the happy snow-time raiding the playground of a rival school when the boys were away, and leaving insulting remarks wrought in snow; or attending the drill of the cavalry on the South Meadow. Like other guerillas, he carried ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren

... Austria, it shed diplomatic tears over the transaction. They cannot be called crocodile tears, insomuch that they were in a measure sincere. They arose from a vivid perception that Austria's allotted share of the spoil could never compensate her for the accession of strength and territory to the other two Powers. Austria did not really want an extension of territory at the cost of Poland. She could not hope to improve her frontier in that way, and economically she had ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad

... by a few of his best woodsmen, pursued the spoil-encumbered foe. The track once discovered they kept it with that unerring sagacity so peculiar to our hunters. The bended grass, the disentangled briars, and the compressed shrubs afforded the only, but to them the certain indication of the route of the enemy. ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... minds from the cause, without pondering His just proceedings; and doth also incense foreign princes against our attempts, how just soever, who cannot but deem the sequel very dangerous unto their state (if in those parts we should grow to strength), seeing the very beginnings are entered with spoil. ...
— Sir Humphrey Gilbert's Voyage to Newfoundland • Edward Hayes

... pressed to the van in an assault, it would not be forgotten that I was ever the last in the retreat—that, if I elevated my banner upon conquered fields of battle, it was all the advantage that I sought, while others were dividing the spoil. I may have called the conquered city by my name, but it was to others that I yielded the dominion. If I have been headstrong in urging bold counsels, I have not, methinks, spared my own blood or my people's in carrying them into as bold execution; or if I have, in the hurry of march or battle, ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... here was so great that it can only be compared to that which was found in Bucoleon.[6] Each soldier filled the room that was assigned to him with plunder and had the treasure guarded; and the others who were scattered through the city also had their share of spoil. And the booty obtained was so great that it is impossible for me to estimate it,—gold and silver and plate and precious stones,—rich altar cloths and vestments of silk and robes of ermine, and treasure that had been buried under the ground. And truly doth testify ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various

... First, I will proceed to meet the bondes; if we can then come to a reconciliation, it is well; but if they will fight with us, then there are two things before us; either we fail in the battle, and then it will be well advised not to have to retire encumbered with spoil and cattle; or we gain the victory, and then ye will be the heirs of all who fight now against us; for some will fall, and others will fly, but both will have forfeited their goods and properties, and then it will be good ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson

... we saw the white yacht coming out of Sweetapple Cove. She was speeding away in the direction of St. John's. The weather was beginning to spoil, and at the foot of the seaward cliffs the great seas, smooth and oily, boomed with great crashes ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick

... Walter just then might without the least difficulty have been goaded into some act of violence which would have rendered expulsion from the school an unavoidable consequence. So easy is it to petrify the will, to make a boy bad in spite of himself, and to spoil, with no intentions but those of kindliness and justice, the promise of a fair young life. For when the will has once been suffered to grow rigid by obstinacy—a result which is very easy to avoid—no power on earth can bend it at the time. Had Mr Paton ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar

... do so without a show of funds. By the time, therefore, that he had reached the city he had resolved that at any rate for the present he would use the money and say nothing about it to Mr. Wharton. Was it not spoil got from the enemy by his own courage and cleverness? When he was writing his acknowledgement for the money to Warburton he had taught himself to look upon the sum extracted from the Duke as a matter quite distinct from the payment made to him ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... same truth of nature, and sustained power, though in a different way. Their action is not so crowded and weighty; their sphere has more territories less fertile; but it has enchantments of its own, which excess of thought would spoil,—luxuries, laughing graces, animal spirits; and not to recognize the beauty and greatness of these, treated as they treat them, is simply to be defective in sympathy. Every planet is not Mars or Saturn. There is also Venus and Mercury. There is one ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... appetites; (12) but being separated from him, Critias had to fly to Thessaly, (13) where he consorted with fellows better versed in lawlessness than justice. And Alcibiades fared no better. His personal beauty on the one hand incited bevies of fine ladies (14) to hunt him down as fair spoil, while on the other hand his influence in the state and among the allies exposed him to the corruption of many an adept in the arts of flattery; honoured by the democracy and stepping easily to the front rank he behaved like an athlete who in the games of the Palaestra is ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon

... you the first year we came! But I'll make it up this year, you'll see; and oh! oh!" clapping her hands at a sudden thought, "I know—I know what I'll do! Tell you?" as Wallula clapped her hands and cried, "Oh, tell me, tell me!" "Of course I sha'n't tell you; that would spoil the whole. Why, that's part of the fun that we don't tell what we are going to do. It is all a secret until Christmas eve or ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry

... the Hare family. He cuts them when they are ready for cutting and spreads them out on the rocks to dry in the sun. He knows that if he should take them down into his barns while they are fresh and green they would sour and spoil; so he never stores them away until they are thoroughly dry. Then, of course, they are hay, for hay is nothing but sun-dried grass cut before it has begun to die. When his hay is just as dry as it should be, he takes it down and stores it away ...
— The Burgess Animal Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess

... man who would lay low our towers; Smite him with lightning, kindly powers, Ere he can storm our home and spoil our virgin bowers. ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith

... frail materials it was made, and she dreaded its coming to pieces under her father's examination. He took hold of the handle rather roughly; when, starting off the coach seat, she cried, "Oh, sir! father! sir! you will spoil it indeed!" said she, with increased vehemence, when, after drawing aside the veil of silver paper, she saw him grasp the myrtle wreathed handle. "Indeed, sir, you will ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth

... spoil all," said Jonas. "Old Granville will suspect something if you seem to care too much ...
— The Errand Boy • Horatio Alger

... these hosts? The hero could not charge down on the ladies and gentlemen in a ballroom, and spoil the quadrille. He had sufficient reticence to avoid sounding his challenge in the Law Courts; nor could he well go into the Houses of Parliament with a trumpet, though to come to a tussle with the nation's direct representatives did seem the likelier ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... it!" she burst out. "It would spoil everything. It would be like building one's own jail and employing one's own jailer. I could n't stand that. I 'd rather be annoyed as I am than ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... over which they vaulted. All the French boys stood round, cheering and humping themselves up when Emil or Amedee went over the wire, as if they were helping in the lift. Emil stopped at five-feet-five, declaring that he would spoil his appetite for supper if ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather

... undercurrents. All this lulled and deceived her. Piracy? Where were the cutlasses, the fierce moustaches, the red bandannas, the rattle of dice, and the drunken songs?—the piracy of tradition? If she had any fear at all it was for the man at her left—Denny—who might run amuck on her account and spoil everything. All her life she would hear the father's voice—"The jam and the cheese, Togo." What men, all three ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath

... Crack," said Crackenbury's fellow, Captain Clinker. "Let's come away, and don't spoil sport. They say ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray

... he exclaimed. "I shall spoil my armour and wet my clothes—let me go, if you please, now." He wished to speak them fair, though doubts as to what they were began to rise up in his mind. "Och, now, let me go, I say! A joke's a joke all the world over; but if you souse me head over ears in that pool, and drown me entirely, ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston

... slavery and the heavy hand of the tax-gatherer were extending even to Wales. The barbarian invader found the effeminate, luxurious empire an easy prey. In 410 Alaric and his host of Goths appeared before the city of Rome itself; and a horde of barbarians, thirsting for blood and spoil, surged into it. The fall of the great city was a shock to the whole world; the end of the world must be near, for how could it stand without Rome? Jerome could hardly sob the strange news: "Rome, which enslaved the whole world, has itself ...
— A Short History of Wales • Owen M. Edwards

... say, 'these swords are yours by right of conquest. You have defeated nine armed men to-night in less than as many minutes, so I present you with the spoil.' Then you will bow to the people assembled in the courtyard,—for there is aways a mob of them there, late and early,—and you will make another low obeisance to me. If you do all this acceptably to my sense of politeness, I will let you go unmolested; but if ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane

... counteracted his manoeuvre. Leaving Aristides, and the troops of his tribe, to guard the spoil and the slain, the Athenian commander led his conquering army by a rapid night-march back across the country to Athens. And when the Persian fleet had doubled the Cape of Sunium and sailed up to the Athenian ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various

... are acting by the orders of the General Police," said the other coldly, "we will change our route, and drive to the Rue de Grenelle instead of the Rue de Jerusalem. I have clear instructions with regard to you. But be careful! You are not in any deep disgrace, and you may spoil your own game in a moment. As for me—I owe you no grudge.—Come; tell me ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... disgust and a stoppage of Franco-Russian money we would have had one of the finest all around throat-cutting competitions the world has ever seen. In the meantime, the mutual jealousy and inability to divide the spoil was beneficial to Turkey, who really lost nothing worth speaking about, ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves

... did, They gallantly go to their fate, Unheeded all warnings, unheeded The maxims of elders sedate. As the husbandman, patiently toiling, Draws a harvest each year from the soil, So the fools grow afresh for the spoiling, And a new crop of thieves for the spoil. ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... By striving all to gain, I need no witness call But him whose thrifty hen, As by the fable we are told, Laid every day an egg of gold. "She hath a treasure in her body," Bethinks the avaricious noddy. He kills and opens—vexed to find All things like hens of common kind. Thus spoil'd the source of all his riches, To misers he a lesson teaches. In these last changes of the moon, How often doth one see Men made as poor as he By force ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... he conceives, as he then did, that reason is on his side. There were three boats; but they had agreed among themselves, and two of them kept aloof. This we are told is their common practice, that they may not spoil their market ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... Frome and Piddle, on which stood, when they landed, a fortress of the West Saxons and a monastery of holy virgins. Fortress and monastery fell into the hands of the Danes, who set to work at once to throw up earthworks and otherwise fortify a space large enough to contain their army, and all spoil brought in by marauding bands from this hitherto unplundered country. This fortified camp was soon very strong, except on the western side, upon which Alfred shortly appeared with a body of horsemen and such ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various

... gathering together three or four of the crudest and most cocksure of the modern theorists, with their shrill voices and metallic virtues, under the fulness and the sonorous sanity of Christian bells. But the figures satirised in The Chimes cross each other's path and spoil each other in some degree. The main purpose of the book was a protest against that impudent and hard-hearted utilitarianism which arranges the people only in rows of men or even in rows of figures. It is ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton

... cause of all evil! That daughter marries a grazier, and wants to set up for gentility; she comes and squeezes presents out of her mother, and the whole family are distrusting each other, and squabbling over the spoil before the poor old creature is dead! It makes one sick! I gave that Mrs. Thorn a bit of my mind at last; I could not stand the sight any longer. Madam, said I, you'll have to answer for your mother's death, as sure as my name's Dick May—a harpy dressed ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... Now, at last, Venice saw her dream within her hand. It was Venice who provided galleys and Venice who provided convoys and commissariat and soldiers, at a good round sum; and when time came for the division of the spoil, Venice demanded in every captured town of Palestine and Syria a church, a counting-house and the right to trade without tolls. Her great chance came in the Fourth Crusade, when her old blind Doge ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power

... thing, to spoil a good many of the logs. And think what it will mean to the mills. No logs means no lumber. That is bankruptcy for a good many who have contracts to fulfil. And no logs means the mills must close. Thousands of men will be thrown out of their jobs, and a good many of them will go hungry. And ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White

... I am as anxious to close up the job as you possibly can be. I should like to see the child, Minnie's child; but I might spoil everything if she looks like her mother. ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... time," went on the Dominie, in slow, measured tones, "I have thought it would be a good thing to give you a sound whipping. The Bible says, 'Spare the rod, and spoil the child.' ... I am going to do something your father forgot ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White

... by the creation of an independent moral sentiment, irrespective of that instinctive preference which we call Falling in Love, I believe that so far from improving man, you would only do one of two things—either spoil his constitution, or produce a tame stereotyped pattern of amiable imbecility. You would crush out all initiative, all spontaneity, all diversity, all originality; you would get an animated moral code instead of living ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

... Isle of Sables, where he had gladdened himself, amid polar snows, with the rum and sugar saved from the wreck of a West India schooner. And wrathfully did he shake his fist, as he related how a party of Cape Cod men had robbed him and his companions of their lawful spoil, and sailed away with every keg of old Jamaica, leaving him not a drop to drown his sorrow. Villains they were, and of that wicked brotherhood who are said to tie lanterns to horses' tails, to mislead the mariner along the ...
— The Village Uncle (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... hear about you again, dear, dearest Miss Mitford, and I can't hear. Will you send me a line or a word.... I mean to go down to see you one day, but certainly we must account it right not to tire you while you are weak, and not to spoil our enjoyment by forestalling it. Two months are full of days; we can afford to wait. Meantime let us have a little gossip such as the ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... don't want to spoil your day and disappoint you and so forth, but my jolly old father-in-law would never let me keep a snake. Why, it's as much as I can do to make him let me stop ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse

... is a moral lesson in these memorials of the monastic ages. The monks, with all their faults, were generally men of peace and study; and these monuments show that they were improving the world, while the warriors were spending their lives to spoil it. In many parts of Italy and France, which had lain in desolation and ruin from the time of the Goths, the monks restored the whole surface to fertility; and in Scotland and Ireland there probably would not have been a fruit tree till the sixteenth century, if it had not been for their peaceful ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 391 - Vol. 14, No. 391, Saturday, September 26, 1829 • Various

... from me, over to where she had put the cup of the water, and the tablets; and I to make to rise, that I look that the boulder did be safe untouched in the mouth of the cave. But she called unto me that I lie backward; for that she did mean gently to spoil me that once; and that I have no heed to the boulder or whether there did be any Monster or Beast anigh in the Gorge; for that the boulder did be safe as I did balance it; and nowheres any Creature to sight in the Gorge; for she had lookt oft, since ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson

... I must do it a few times, or Joe will plague me and spoil my fun to-night," answered Jill, shaking her skirts and rubbing her blue hands, wet ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott

... news of my father and mother for twelve years or so, and, in my earlier days, I never thought of providing myself with a wife—and now, you know, it wouldn't do. So I was glad to have found someone to spoil. She used to sing to us or dance the Lezginka. [17].. And what a dancer she was! I have seen our own ladies in provincial society; and on one occasion, sir, about twenty years ago, I was even in the ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov

... one delightful feature about Meng, and that was the intense sympathy he had for his fellow-creatures. He had a heart of gold that no prosperity could spoil; no one who ever applied to him for relief was sent away empty-handed. The struggling shopkeeper made his humble appeal when fate seemed determined to crush him, and the substantial loan that Meng made to him without ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan

... said the baby voice; the round arms clasped Hester's neck, but the brown eyes were already traveling eagerly over the breakfast table in quest of spoil ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade

... fire oot," he cried, and ran back to stand looking down at it. "Nay, put she'd spoil a gude cooking fire if she put on anny coal. ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn

... going to take it nicely," she went on, "that we are going to be such good friends as we always were, and that even the memory of your poor uncle's death and the ghastly trial which followed and the part that Jasper played will not spoil ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace

... arts, I say— Embalm the dead—on senseless clay Rich wine and spices waste: Like sturgeon, or like brawn, shall I, Bound in a precious pickle lie, Which I can never taste! Let me embalm this flesh of mine, With turtle fat, and Bourdeaux wine, And spoil the Egyptian trade, Than Glo'ster's Duke, more happy I, Embalm'd alive, old Quin shall lie A mummy ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon

... at something else which I like better. I shall perhaps go to Church this afternoon from a sort of feeling that it is rather a wholesome thing to do of an afternoon; it keeps one from work and it lets you out so late that you cannot weary yourself walking and so spoil your ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... lips, and left on it such a vile odor that no man could come near it. He, being a prophet, knew that the Argonauts would free him from this curse. There were with them Zetes and Calias, winged sons of Boreas, the god of the north winds; and when the harpies descended again to spoil the prophet's meal, these winged warriors not only drove them away, but pursued them through the air. They could not overtake them, but the harpies were forbidden by Jupiter to molest Phineus ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... Gracie! I had not the least idea, when I gave Lillie leave to get what she chose, what it would come to, with those people at her elbow, to put things into her head. I could not interfere, you know, after the thing was started; and I thought I would not spoil Lillie's pleasure, especially as I had to stand firm in not allowing wine. It was well I did; for if wine had been given, and taken with the reckless freedom that all the rest was, it might have ended in ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... include all unbelievers everywhere. When Mohammed once had captured a fortress inhabited by a tribe of Jews, his judgment was, "The men shall be put to death, the women and children sold into slavery, and the spoil divided amongst the army." Then, trenches were dug, some seven hundred men were marched out, forced to seat themselves in rows along the top of the trenches, beheaded, and then tumbled into a long gaping grave. Meanwhile, the Prophet ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks

... which they probably had previous intimations. On the 3d of February they arrived off St. Eustatius, which in the face of their imposing force submitted at once. They took possession of the island, with goods stored to the estimated value of L3,000,000,—an immense spoil in those days. A Dutch ship-of-war, with a hundred and fifty sail of traders of various nationalities, were also seized; while a convoy of thirty merchant ships, which had sailed thirty-six hours ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan

... they, "it was so, and the King would give half his treasure to be freed of them, for they not only spoil his dinner, but they even attack him in his bed at night, so that a watch has to be kept while he is sleeping, ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel

... against well-to-do citizens: and is not a regular athlete an easy match for two stout opponents at least? Suppose also, that before engaging we send ambassadors to one of the two cities, saying, 'Silver and gold we have not; do you help us and take our share of the spoil;'—who would fight against the lean, wiry dogs, when they might join with them in preying upon the fatted sheep? 'But if many states join their resources, shall we not be in danger?' I am amused to hear you ...
— The Republic • Plato

... respects, has one sad fault. She is selfish. When she receives any rarity she would prefer to eat it herself, just as the chickens do when they have found a nice tit-bit. It is really a trial to her that she cannot eat a whole basket of peaches before they would spoil! Indeed, one day, after receiving such a present, she said to a person in the family, "I wish my father would not send so many. I like it better when I have only a small basket, and can keep it ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various

... since he had assumed his disguise to Laodice in the wilderness had he been close to the immemorial repose of nature. All his primitive manhood rushed back to him, now infuriated with a fear that his love was the spoil of another. ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller

... dissembling Dionysia, "do you weep alone? How does it chance my daughter is not with you? Do not sorrow for Lychorida; you have a nurse in me. Your beauty is quite changed with this unprofitable woe. Come, give me your flowers—the sea air will spoil them—and walk with Leonine; the air is fine, and will enliven you. Come, Leonine, take her by the ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... people, the national demoralisation grew worse and worse. An Oxford priest, who kept a school at Limerick, writing so late as 1566 of the Irish nobles, says—'Of late they spare neither churches nor hallowed places, but thence also they fill their hands with spoil—yea, and sometimes they set them on fire and kill the ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... and the walk through the gardens was so little frequented, that at the hour when Paris dines, two lovers might fall out and exchange the earnest of reconciliation without fear of intruders. The only possible spoil-sport was the pensioner on duty at the little iron gate on the Rue de l'Ouest, if that gray-headed veteran should take it into his head to lengthen his monotonous beat. There, on a bench beneath the lime-trees, Etienne Lousteau sat ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac

... but there was one singular instance of cannibalism. The savage Chippewas from the far-off north devoured one of the slain soldiers, probably in a spirit of ferocious bravado; the other tribes expressed horror at the deed. [Footnote: Brickell's Narrative.] The Indians were rich with the spoil. They got horses, tents, guns, axes, powder, clothing, and blankets—in short everything their hearts prized. Their loss was comparatively slight; it may not have been one twentieth that of the whites. ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt

... wonderingly. "Why, I'm out in the woods!" he said in a surprised voice. Gradually he recollected how he had built the house, chased a hen, and lost his hammer. This last accident troubled him a little. "Papa said I mustn't touch that big hammer ever," he thought to himself, "'cause I'd be sure to spoil it. But I'll tell him it isn't spoiled, and he can pick it up and put it back into the drawer; ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge

... such request. He lavished upon me all that superfluity of fondness and food of which those good people who are resolved to spoil their children are so prodigal. He could not bear the idea of sending me to school; accordingly he took a tutor for me,—a simple-hearted, gentle, kind man, who possessed a vast store of learning rather curious than useful. He was a tolerable, and at least an enthusiastic antiquarian, a ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... all the murders committed by the Utes, there was not a single instance of their having shown any such mercy. Moreover, it was ascertained that an armed party of Mormons had left Cedar City, and had returned with spoil, and that the savages complained of having been unfairly treated in ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... throat, and spoil your Sunday's quavering, Sir Clerk," said Lambourne fiercely; "cudgel you, my worshipful dealer in flimsy sarsenets, into ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... parents like the fourth type, lenient like the Alimentives, nor temperamental with their children like the Thoracics, but practical and very efficient in their parenthood. They are very fond of their children but do not "spoil" them as often as some of the other ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict

... that the associates should secure to him the sum of one thousand pesos de oro in requital of his good-will, and they eagerly closed with his proposal, rather than be encumbered with his pretensions. For so paltry a consideration did he resign his portion of the rich spoil of the Incas! 2 But the governor was not gifted with the eye of a prophet. His avarice was of that short-sighted kind which defeats itself. He had sacrificed the chivalrous Balboa just as that officer was opening ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... in yonder dell Pursues his daily toil; As witness many a prostrate trunk, Bereft of leafy spoil, Hard by its wooden stump, whereon The ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... something else, but Miss Fosbrook would not let Sam go on; she touched his arm, and drew him off with her, he exclaiming, "Foolish old Freeman! she will pet and spoil him all church-time, till he ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge

... "your proposition of safety first doesn't interest me. No, sir! I'm sending my wife to Virginia in hopes that she will actually fall in love with somebody else, so I won't have to endure what little I see of her any more, and here you come in to spoil my future. No, sir!" ...
— Best Short Stories • Various

... heard of them," repeated Mistress Mary, "and even that they must need spoil by coming home and paying tithes to my Lord Culpeper that he wink at their disaffection. I trow had I been a man and fought with General Bacon, as I would have fought, had I been a man, I would have paid no price therefore to the king himself, but would have ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins

... boughs, "it must be always so. Even as the day dies every night and is born with the dawn; even as the orchard leaves but to blossom and blossoms but to fruit, and all is to do another year; even as God makes the harvest for us to spoil, and smiles and makes another; so must women weave what the year will wear and wash what the day will soil. And man, her greatest work, will one day die and moulder into roses that other men shall one day pick. Our men-children ...
— In the Border Country • Josephine Daskam Bacon

... an honest living and show us a good example? What good will all this humbugging do us? We don't want to come into such places if they will only let us live when we are out. Why don't they find us work and try to keep us out of prison?" "Ah! that would spoil their own trade," someone would reply. Such criticisms passed between the prisoners on these new orders, with an accompaniment of ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous

... therefore make the grand mistake of concluding that our fine old English birthright in science—the birthright that gave us our Newtons, our Cavendishes, our Darwins, our Lyells—was all folly and error. Don't let us spoil ourselves in order to become mere second-hand Germans. Let us recognise the fact that each nation has a work of its own to do in the world; and that as star from star, so one nation differeth from another in glory. Let each of us thank the goodness and ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen

... because two people like each other's society, and talk and laugh together a little more than usual, that the must needs be in love! I believe Charles Lennox loves me much the same as he did eleven years ago, when I was a little wretch that used to pull his hair and spoil his watch. And as for me, you know that I consider myself quite as an old woman—at least as a married one; and he is perfectly au fait to my engagement with Edward. I have even shown him his picture ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... however, agree with their guests that it is decidedly "spoil sport" to deprive a lot of friends (who have only their good luck at heart) of the perfectly legitimate enjoyment of throwing emblems of good luck after them. If one white slipper among those thrown after the motor lands right side ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post

... not for a moment deny. It is shapeless, it is trivial, it may give an unreal air of knowledge, it unquestionably lies along with the rest of popular literature under the general indictment that it may spoil the chance of better work, certainly by wasting time, possibly by ruining taste. But these obvious objections are the objections which we hear so persistently from everyone that one cannot help wondering where the papers in question procure their myriads of readers. The natural necessity and ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton

... a doubt of her innocence. Nor did he doubt that the other loved her and had carried her off not so much for the hostage of a coveted fortune as for a love spoil, which a man destroys ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc

... It was breathless work, but not at all dangerous or difficult. Every step forward was also a step upward; and as we stopped to rest for a moment, we could see already glimpses of the lake below us. But at these I did not much care to look, for I think it is a pity to spoil the surprise of a grand view by taking little snatches of it beforehand. It is better to keep one's face set to the mountain, and then, coming out from the dark forest upon the very summit, feel the splendour of the outlook flash upon one ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke



Words linked to "Spoil" :   cloud, stretch, let down, defile, deface, go wrong, forestall, treat, destroy, spoilation, decay, disfigure, load, plundering, forbid, debase, damage, want, miscarry, adulterate, injury, curdle, plural, foreclose, modify, blemish, plural form, dash, dilute, disappoint, pillaging, fail, sully, ruin, pillage, addle, taint, prevent, do by, short-circuit, preclude, stolen property, desire, handle



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