different between spoil vs blotch

English

Etymology

From Middle English spoilen, spuylen, borrowed from Old French espoillier, espollier, espuler, from Latin spoli?re, present active infinitive of spoli? (“pillage, ruin, spoil”).

Pronunciation

• enPR: spoil, IPA^(key): /sp??l/

• Rhymes: -??l

Verb

spoil (third-person singular simple present spoils, present participle spoiling, simple past and past participle spoiled or spoilt)

1. (transitive, archaic) To strip (someone who has been killed or defeated) of their arms or armour. [from 14th c.]
2. (transitive, archaic) To strip or deprive (someone) of their possessions; to rob, despoil. [from 14th c.]
   • 1526, William Tyndale, trans. Bible, Acts 9:21:

     All that herde hym wer amased and sayde: ys nott this he that spoylled them whych called on this name in Jerusalem?

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, VII:

     To do her dye (quoth Vna) were despight, / And shame t'auenge so weake an enimy; / But spoile her of her scarlot robe, and let her fly.
3. (transitive, intransitive, archaic) To plunder, pillage (a city, country etc.). [from 14th c.]

   • Outlaws, which, lurking in woods, used to break forth to rob and spoil.

4. (transitive, obsolete) To carry off (goods) by force; to steal. [14th-19th c.]
   • 1611, King James Version of the Bible, Mark 3.27,^[1]

     No man can enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man.

   • 1677, Hannah Woolley, The Compleat Servant-Maid, London: T. Passinger, p. 35,^[2]

     They must likewise endeavour to be careful in looking after the rest of the Servants, that every one perform their duty in their several places, that they keep good hours in their up-rising and lying down, and that no Goods be either spoiled or embezelled.

   • 1814, Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Chapter 38,^[3]

     […] it was her own knife; little sister Mary had left it to her upon her deathbed, and she ought to have had it to keep herself long ago. But mama kept it from her, and was always letting Betsey get hold of it; and the end of it would be that Betsey would spoil it, and get it for her own, though mama had promised her that Betsey should not have it in her own hands.

5. (transitive) To ruin; to damage (something) in some way making it unfit for use. [from 16th c.]
   • 1650, Jeremy Taylor, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living

     Spiritual pride […] spoils so many graces.

   • "I don't want to spoil any comparison you are going to make," said Jim, "but I was at Winchester and New College." ¶ "That will do," said Mackenzie. "I was dragged up at the workhouse school till I was twelve. […]"

   • 2011, ‘What the Arab papers say’, The Economist, 5 Aug 2011:

     ‘This is a great day for us. Let us not spoil it by saying the wrong thing, by promoting a culture of revenge, or by failing to treat the former president with respect.’

6. (transitive) To ruin the character of, by overindulgence; to coddle or pamper to excess. [from 17th c.]
7. (intransitive) Of food, to become bad, sour or rancid; to decay. [from 17th c.]

   Make sure you put the milk back in the fridge, otherwise it will spoil.

8. (transitive) To render (a ballot paper) invalid by deliberately defacing it. [from 19th c.]
   • 2003, David Nicoll, The Guardian, letter:

     Dr Jonathan Grant (Letters, April 22) feels the best way to show his disaffection with political parties over Iraq is to spoil his ballot paper.

9. (transitive) To reveal the ending or major events of (a story etc.); to ruin (a surprise) by exposing it ahead of time.
10. (aviation) To reduce the lift generated by an airplane or wing by deflecting air upwards, usually with a spoiler.

Synonyms

• (ruin): damage, destroy, ruin
• (coddle): coddle, pamper, indulge, mollycoddle

Related terms

• despoil

Translations

Noun

spoil (plural spoils)

1. (Also in plural: spoils) Plunder taken from an enemy or victim.
2. (uncountable) Material (such as rock or earth) removed in the course of an excavation, or in mining or dredging. Tailings. Such material could be utilised somewhere else.

Synonyms

• (plunder taken from an enemy or victim): See Thesaurus:booty
• (material moved): gangue, slag, tailings

Derived terms

• spoiler

Translations

See also

• spoilage
• spoils of war
• spoilsport
• spoilt
• too many cooks spoil the broth

References

• spoil at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams

• -polis, Polis, polis

English

Etymology

Uncertain. Perhaps a blend of blot +? botch.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /bl?t?/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /bl?t?/
• Rhymes: -?t?

Noun

blotch (plural blotches)

1. An uneven patch of color or discoloration.
   • 1711, Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, The Spectator, London: J. & R. Tonson, 12th edition, Volume I, No. 16, p. 68,^[1]

     […] in healing those Blotches and Tumours which break out in the body […]

   • 1768, Laurence Sterne, Sermon VI in The Sermons of Mr. Yorick, London: T. Becket & P.A. De Hondt, Volume 3, pp. 182-183,^[2]

     Since the day in which this reformation began, by how many strange and critical turns has it been perfected and handed down, if not, entirely without spot or wrinkle,—at least, without great blotches or marks of anility.

   • 1860, George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, Book II, Chapter 2,^[3]

     Snow lay on the croft and river-bank in undulations softer than the limbs of infancy; […] it clothed the rough turnip-field with whiteness, and made the sheep look like dark blotches;

   • 1921, Wallace Stevens, Sur Ma Guzzla Gracile, Palace of the Babies, in Poetry, Volume 19, No. 1,^[4]

     The disbeliever walked the moonlit place,

     Outside the gates of hammered serafin,

     Observing the moon-blotches on the walls.

2. An irregularly shaped area.
   • 1923, Willa Cather, One of Ours, Book One, Chapter 5,^[5]

     His shirt showed big blotches of moisture, and the sweat was rolling in clear drops along the creases in his brown neck.
3. (figuratively) Imperfection; blemish on one’s reputation, stain.
   • 1921, Warren G. Harding, Inaugural address, in Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents of the United States: from George Washington to Barack Obama, Washington, D.C.: U.S. G.P.O., 1989,^[6]

     There never can be equality of rewards or possessions so long as the human plan contains varied talents and differing degrees of industry and thrift, but ours ought to be a country free from the great blotches of distressed poverty.

4. Any of various crop diseases that cause the plant to form spots.
5. A bright or dark spot on old film caused by dirt and loss of the gelatin covering the film, due to age and poor film quality.
6. A dark spot on the skin; a pustule.
7. (slang) Blotting paper.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

blotch (third-person singular simple present blotches, present participle blotching, simple past and past participle blotched)

1. (transitive) To mark with blotches.
   • 1770, Arthur Young, A Six Months Tour through the North of England, London: W. Strahan, Volume 2, p. 258,^[7]

     Upon the whole, the spirit and relief of the figures, with the strength of the colouring, render it a most noble picture; and it is not done in the coarse blotching stile, so common to the pieces which pass under the name of Bassan.

   • 1860, W. R. Tymms, The Art of Illuminating as Practised in Europe from the Earliest Times, London: Day & Son, Chapter 40, p. 84,^[8]

     A straight-edge is placed upon the chalk lines, with the edge next the line slightly raised, and the brush, well filled with colour, drawn along it, just touching the wall, the pressure being never increased, and the brush refilled whenever it is near failing; but great care must be taken that it be not too full, as in that case it will be apt to blotch the line, or drop the colour upon the lower portions of the wall.

   • 1914, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Valley of Fear, Part 1, Chapter 4,^[9]

     Just beyond were two ancient stone pillars, weather-stained and lichen-blotched bearing upon their summits a shapeless something which had once been the rampant lion of Capus of Birlstone.

   • 1918, D. H. Lawrence, Parliament Hill in the Evening in New Poems,^[10]

     The houses fade in a melt of mist

     Blotching the thick, soiled air

     With reddish places that still resist

     The Night’s slow care.

   • 1934, Sinclair Lewis, Work of Art, Chapter 1,^[11]

     His strong skin was of the Norse snow-fed pallor that no sun ever tanned, no adolescence ever blotched.
2. (intransitive) To develop blotches, to become blotchy.
   • 1878, Arthur Morecamp (pseudonym of Thomas Pilgrim), Live Boys; or, Charley and Nasho in Texas, Boston: Lee & Shepard, Chapter 17, p. 166,^[12]

     […] when a man is going to drive cattle out of the county he has to put a road-brand on them […] It is generally made of letters or figures, or something that won’t cross lines, because where they cross they are apt to blotch and then it’s hard to tell what the brand is and who the animal belongs to.

Derived terms

• blotched (adjective)