different between despoil vs depredation

English

Etymology

From Middle English despoylen, dispoylen, from Old French despoillier ( > French dépouiller), from Latin d?spoli?, d?spoli?re.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /d??sp??l/
• Rhymes: -??l

Verb

despoil (third-person singular simple present despoils, present participle despoiling, simple past and past participle despoiled)

1. (transitive) To plunder; to pillage; take spoil from.
   • 1849, Thomas Macaulay, History of England, Chapter 20:

     a law which restored to them an immense domain of which they had been despoiled

   • 1859, George Meredith, The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, Chapter 5:

     Ripton was familiar with the rod, a monster much despoiled of his terrors by intimacy.

   • 2010, The Economist, 17 July, p.53:

     To dreamers in the West, Tibet is a Shangri-La despoiled by Chinese ruthlessness and rapacity.

2. (transitive) To violently strip (someone), with indirect object of their possessions etc.; to rob.
   • 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 9, 410-11:

     To intercept thy way, or send thee back / Despoiled of innocence, of faith, of bliss.

   • 1849, Thomas Macaulay, History of England, Chapter 20:

     A law which restored to them an immense domain of which they had been despoiled.

3. (obsolete, transitive or reflexive) To strip (someone) of their clothes; to undress.

Related terms

• despoiler
• despoilment
• despoliation
• spoliate
• spoliation

Translations

Noun

despoil (plural despoils)

1. (obsolete) Plunder; spoliation.

References

• despoil in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• despoil in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Anagrams

• diploes, diploës, dipoles, elopids, peloids, soliped, spoiled

English

Etymology

From Middle French déprédation, from Latin depraedatio.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?d?p???de???n/

Noun

depredation (countable and uncountable, plural depredations)

1. An act of consuming agricultural resources (crops, livestock), especially as plunder.
   • 2003, The Living Elephants: Evolutionary Ecology, Behavior, and Conservation, by R. Sukumar, page 299:

     Depredation of cultivated crops by elephants is widespread in both Africa and Asia.

2. A raid or predatory attack.

   Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman had long known that his fragile supply and communication lines through Tennessee were in serious jeopardy because of depredations by Forrest's cavalry raids. (Battle of Brice's Crossroads)

Translations

Related terms

• predation
• predator
• prey