as in pillaging
to search through with the intent of committing robbery
the burglars despoiled the art museum in search of treasures they thought they could sell to a fence
Synonyms & Similar Words
Relevance
as in plundering
Related Words
Dissimilar Words
Example Sentences
Recent Examples of Synonyms for despoiling
Noun
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Vikings, for example, used the extra daylight to sneak in a longer pillage sesh.—
Corey Buhay,
Outside Online,
19 June 2025 -
Otherwise, illicit actors will continue to profit from their pillage.—
Justyna Gudzowska,
Foreign Affairs,
2 June 2025
Verb
-
Dallas sacking Washington’s quarterbacks six times — Daniels four times — on Sunday upped the Commanders’ allowed sacks total to 22 over the last five games.—
Ben Standig,
The Athletic,
5 Jan. 2025
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Dallas sacking Washington’s quarterbacks six times — Daniels four times — on Sunday upped the Commanders’ allowed sacks total to 22 over the last five games.—
Ben Standig,
The Athletic,
5 Jan. 2025
Noun
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California was also a land of plunder, a place where rampant capitalism had merged with unrealistic fantasy.—
Andrew Moore,
New York Times,
15 May 2025
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At the Jeu de Paume museum, Valland took many risks to safeguard its treasures and record the massive plunder of artwork across France.—
Pat Tompkins,
AFAR Media,
18 June 2025
Noun
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Last Friday, Damien Marshall and other King & Spalding attorneys on behalf of MSG filed a memorandum of law in opposition to Oakley’s motion for what are known as spoliation sanctions, meaning a punishment for failure to preserve relevant evidence.—
Michael McCann,
Sportico.com,
14 May 2025
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Chain of Custody Issues: The longer the delay between an incident and preserving mobile evidence, the more opportunities exist for spoliation claims about data modification or tampering.—
Lars Daniel,
Forbes,
24 Mar. 2025
Noun
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By the time both sisters head with their chorus to New York, Karolina has become the new target of Vitek’s predation.—
Jordan Mintzer,
HollywoodReporter,
7 July 2025
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Crops belonging to the nightshade family like potatoes, eggplants, and tomatoes produce these bitter-tasting molecules to help ward off predation by fungi, insects, and other animals.—
New Atlas,
New Atlas,
29 June 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Despoiling.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/despoiling. Accessed 18 Jul. 2025.
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