Word.ws English Dictionary

spoils

/spɔɪlz/

spoils noun: that which is taken from another by violence; especially, the plunder taken from an enemy; pillage, booty. Also the third-person singular simple present indicative of spoil.

Noun

spoils pl (plural only)

  1. (plural, plural-only) That which is taken from another by violence; especially, the plunder taken from an enemy; pillage, booty.
    • Gentle gales, / Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense / Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole / Those balmy spoils.1667, John Milton, “Book IV”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished...
    • When the Japanese armies captured Pingrang on 15th September, they discovered that 35 good field guns were left behind, together with hundreds of magazine rifles and hundreds more of breechloaders. The amount of ammunition captured was also enormous.⁴⁷ If the spoils were already so substantial, the...1996 October, Allen Fung, “Testing the Self-Strengthening: The Chinese Army in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895”, in Modern Asian Studies, volume 30, number 4, →ISSN, →JSTOR, →OCLC, page 1017...
    Synonyms:
    booty
  2. (plural, plural-only) Waste material left over in the course of excavation, construction, mining, or dredging operations.
    • dredging spoils
  3. (plural, plural-only) Public offices and their benefits regarded as the peculiar property of a successful party or faction, to be bestowed for its own advantage.
    • To the victor belong the spoils.

Also used as

spoils is also the third-person singular simple present indicative of spoil.

spoils meaning in Sanskrit

spoils in Sanskrit

that which is taken from another by violence
गोग्रह gograha

Examples of spoils in a sentence

  • The amount of ammunition captured was also enormous.⁴⁷ If the spoils were already so substantial, the quantity of effective weapons the Chinese possessed in Pingrang was certainly impressive.1996 October, Allen Fung, “Testing the Self-Strengthening: The Chinese Army in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895”, in Modern Asian...
  • The two men looked happy enough with their spoils.2017, David Walliams [pseudonym; David Edward Williams], Bad Dad, London: HarperCollins Children’s Books, →ISBN:

Synonyms of spoils

Words formed from spoils

Phrases with spoils

Words that rhyme with spoils

Questions about spoils

What does spoils mean?
Spoils means that which is taken from another by violence; especially, the plunder taken from an enemy; pillage, booty.
What is spoils in Sanskrit?
Spoils in Sanskrit is गोग्रह (gograha). See Spoils meaning in Sanskrit.
How do you use spoils in a sentence?
The amount of ammunition captured was also enormous.⁴⁷ If the spoils were already so substantial, the quantity of effective weapons the Chinese possessed in Pingrang was certainly impressive.
What part of speech is spoils?
Spoils is a noun.
How do you pronounce spoils?
Spoils is pronounced /spɔɪlz/.

Words near spoils in the dictionary

  1. spoiling someone rotten
  2. spoiling the market
  3. spoiling the ship for a ha'p'orth of tar
  4. spoilings
  5. spoilless
  6. spoils
  7. spoils of war
  8. spoils somebody rotten
  9. spoils someone rotten
  10. spoils system
  11. spoils systems

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: spoils (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-spoils.ogg.

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