Word.ws English Dictionary

despoils

despoils is the third-person singular simple present indicative of despoil.

Meaning of despoil

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.
    • [T]here vvas brought unto him an horſe named Babylonius, vvhich happening to be ſore vexed vvith a ſuddaine gripe or vvring in his belly, fell dovvne, and vvhiles hee vvas not able to endure the paine, vvallovveth along, and happeneth to beſprent his capariſon and ornaments richly garniſhed vvith...1609, Ammianus Marcellinus, “[The XXIII. Booke.] Chapter II. Being Departed out of Antioch, He was Troubled and Haunted with Strange Signes and Dreames: But afterwards Comforted againe by Sundrie...
  2. (transitive) To violently strip (someone), with indirect object of their possessions etc.; to rob.
    • The Earl of March, following the plain path which his father had trodden out, despoiled Henry the father, and Edward the son, both of their lives and kingdom.1614, Walter Ralegh [i.e., Walter Raleigh], The Historie of the World […], London: […] William Stansby for Walter Burre, […], →OCLC, (please specify |book=1 to 5)
  3. (obsolete, reflexive, transitive) To strip (someone) of their clothes; to undress.
    • So syr Persants doughter dyd as her fader bad her / and soo she wente vnto syr Beaumayns bed / & pryuely she dispoylled her / & leid her doune by hym / & thenne he awoke & sawe her & asked her what she was1485, Sir Thomas Malory, “xij”, in Le Morte Darthur, book VII

See all 4 meanings of despoil

Questions about despoils

What is despoils the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Despoils is the third-person singular simple present indicative of despoil.

Words near despoils in the dictionary

  1. despoilers
  2. despoiling
  3. despoilings
  4. despoilment
  5. despoilments
  6. despoils
  7. Despoina
  8. despoliation
  9. despoliations
  10. despond
  11. desponded

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: despoils (page history and authors); despoil (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “despoils.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/despoils. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.