Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use spoil in a sentence

40 example sentences · verb, noun

Spoil means to strip (someone who has been killed or defeated) of arms or armour. Example: “All this sun spoils me for vacations in the far North.”

Examples of spoil by meaning

verbTo ruin; to damage in such a way as to make undesirable or unusable.

  • All this sun spoils me for vacations in the far North.
  • "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.1909 September 9, Archibald Marshall [pseudonym; Arthur Hammond Marshall], chapter II, in The Squire’s Daughter, London: Methuen & Co. […]...
  • 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.’2011 August 5, “What the Arab papers say”, in The Economist

verbTo go bad; to become sour or rancid; to decay.

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

verbTo render (a ballot) invalid by deliberately defacing.

  • 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.2003, David Nicoll, The Guardian, letter

verbTo prematurely reveal major events or the ending of (a story etc.); to ruin (a surprise) by exposing ahead of time as a...

  • The princess confab also leads into a scene featuring Vanellope and the cast of Slaughter Race that probably shouldn’t be spoiled.2018 November 14, Jesse Hassenger, “Disney Goes Viral with an Ambitious, Overstuffed Wreck-It Ralph Sequel”, in The A.V. Club, archived...

nounMaterial (such as rock or earth) removed in the course of an excavation, or in mining or dredging. Tailings. Such...

  • Lambert that there is "a continuing problem of supplying, particularly for the civil engineer, the number of wagons required for carrying construction materials and spoil for various works."1961 December, “Planning the London Midland main-line electrification”, in Trains Illustrated, page 721

More sentences with spoil

  • The fighting is over; now we deal out the spoils of victory.From the entry deal
  • The food went spoilt in the heat and had to be thrown away.From the entry spoilt
  • The child was so spoilt that she expected everything to be done for her.From the entry spoilt
  • The organoleptic assessment of the wine showed that it was spoiled.From the entry organoleptic
  • My little sister is so spoiled. She always gets her way, even when she misbehaves.From the entry get one's way
  • The spoiled food would soon nastify the entire refrigerator if not thrown out.From the entry nastify
  • The child was spoiled by constant gifts.From the entry spoiled
  • I have fond grandparents who spoil me.From the entry fond
  • The young Marine was spoiling for a fight; he hoped to get some during his next tour of duty.From the entry get some
  • Milk spoils when left out too long.From the entry spoils
  • The robber chieftain divided up the spoils.From the entry chieftain
  • An only child is often stereotyped as spoiled.From the entry only child
  • Most of the rice was spoiled.From the entry most
  • His daughter was petted and spoiled.From the entry pet
  • They shared equally in the spoils.From the entry equally
  • To the victor belong the spoils.From the entry spoils
  • "One of our kittens started chewing on the chair the other day and now they're all doing it! Just goes to show that one bad apple can spoil the barrel."From the entry one bad apple can spoil the barrel
  • Both our cat and the dog are spoiled monsters and beg for food every meal.2026 July 6, @chaoskat.bsky.social, Bluesky (post), archived from the original on 06 Jul 2026. From the entry spoiled
  • “Don't worry, I'm not going to let anything spoil our day.2018 June 25, L.P. Dover, Going for the Hole, Books by L.P. Dover, LLC. From the entry spread
  • The first wagon's sides are literally bulging at the seams with ballast spoil.2018, Andy Gibbs, The Southern Region in the 1970s and 1980s, Amberley Publishing →ISBN, page 12, photo caption. From the entry secondman
  • Anup replied, "I like veg but I don't want to spoil my non-vegetarian menus, especially chicken-65."2017, Satish Kumar, Campus Plus: Dreams, Friends And Challenges, page 110. From the entry chicken 65
  • She spoiled him rotten and introduced him to a life that wasn't really good for him.2015, Vernal Lind, Beyond Tomorrow, →ISBN. From the entry spoil someone rotten
  • I'm your typical trustafarian, I'm afraid: spoilt little rich kid living the dream off his inheritance.2012, Hannah Richell, The Secrets of the Tides, →ISBN, page 425. From the entry trustafarian
  • But let's not spoil our happy ending for the East London Line.2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 94. From the entry overground
  • It's that time of year when we spoil our children garbage-rotten with toys, toys, and more toys.2012 December 27, Karolina Dean...Big money STILL weaves a mighty web..., quoting an article by Laura Beck, “Are Friendship Bracelet Kits…. From the entry gchat
  • Overpermissive owners want to spoil their dogs and usually freely admit they spoil their dogs.2003, Liz Palika, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Yorkshire Terriers. From the entry overpermissive
  • If heavy undraining soil spoils your plant selection, grow 'Passion Mix' in containers with a soilless mix.1999, California Garden - Volumes 90-91, page 54. From the entry undraining
  • “He’s spoiled rotten.” Fishing a lump of sugar out, she fed it to him.1992, Tamora Pierce, Wild Magic, New York, N.Y.: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, →ISBN, page 57. From the entry breech
  • But for every proverb there is an antiproverb ("Too many cooks spoil the broth" vs.1987, Howard Margolis, Patterns, Thinking, and Cognition: A Theory of Judgment, page 92. From the entry antiproverb
  • It is the overpermissive parent who raises the well known spoiled brat.1975, Thomas D. Gnagey, How to Put Up with Parents: A Guide for Teenagers, page 90. From the entry overpermissive
  • These taste good but spoil the appetite for more desirable foods.1956, United States Children's Bureau publication, Your Child from One to Six, US Government Publishing Office, page 46. From the entry piece
  • I dared not do anything to spoil the image of me she had set up to adore.1955, Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: G[eorge] P[almer] Putnam’s Sons, published August 1958, →OCLC, part…. From the entry duenna
  • My hunch is that the public is being spoiled through being overentertained.1954, Bob Hope, Pete Martin, Have Tux, Will Travel. From the entry overentertained

Meaning of spoil

  1. verb To strip (someone who has been killed or defeated) of arms or armour.
  2. verb To strip or deprive (someone) of possessions; to rob, despoil.
  3. verb To plunder, pillage (a city, country etc.).

Full definition of spoil

Questions about spoil in a sentence

How do you use spoil in a sentence?
Spoil is used as a verb and noun. For example: “All this sun spoils me for vacations in the far North.”
What is a short sentence with spoil?
“His daughter was petted and spoiled.”
What does spoil mean?
Spoil means to strip (someone who has been killed or defeated) of arms or armour.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: spoil (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use spoil in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/spoil. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.