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At one point in Frodo’s journey in The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien depicts an ancient statue overlooking a crossroads: “Its head was gone, and in its place was set in mockery a round rough-hewn stone, rudely painted … in the likeness of a grinning face with one large red eye in the midst of its forehead.” The statue had been vandalized by orcs, but the roots of vandalize have more in common with the name of a Tolkien hero. Vandalize comes from the noun vandal, which was originally capitalized and referred to a member of a Germanic people who lived south of the Baltic Sea and sacked Rome in the year 455 CE. This sacking is what likely led to the use of the lower-case vandal for someone who damages or destroys property. The Late Latin word for such a Vandal was Vandalī, a word probably borrowed from a Germanic verb meaning “wend, turn” that also gave rise to the Old English Ēarendel, the name of a mythological figure that inspired Tolkien’s creation of Eärendil, a mariner who wends his way across the sky of Middle Earth carrying the morning star.
Examples of vandalize in a Sentence
Erin Jensen, USA Today, 12 Sep. 2025
Individuals responsible for vandalizing public property will also face accountability.
—Sonal Nain, MSNBC Newsweek, 12 Sep. 2025
Wilson, a Boise Black Lives Matter organizer and former Boise State University adjunct professor, previously made headlines in 2021 when he was arrested for vandalizing a statue of Abraham Lincoln in Julia Davis Park.
—Sally Krutzig, Idaho Statesman, 11 Sep. 2025
The mural has been vandalized before, and already the Native man’s genitals were barely visible because someone had previously tried to obscure the paint.
—Shomik Mukherjee, Mercury News, 6 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for vandalize
Cite this Entry
“Vandalize.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vandalize. Accessed 14 Sep. 2025.
Copy CitationKids Definition
vandalize
verb
Legal Definition
vandalize
transitive verb
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