Spoiled

How to spell spoiled

7 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce spoiled

What does spoiled mean?

1. verbDamaged, ruined, or made unfit, especially in the past tense of spoil.
2. adjectiveTreated with too much indulgence, so as to harm someone's character, or describing food that has gone bad.

Spoiled in a sentence

• verb

  The milk spoiled after a week in the warm car.

• adjective

  The spoiled child demanded a new toy every time they entered a shop.

• verb

  A sudden downpour spoiled our afternoon at the beach.

• adjective

  She threw out the spoiled meat once she noticed the smell.

Where does spoiled come from?

Language of origin: French

This is the past form of 'spoil', which came into English around 1300 from the Old French verb 'espoillier', meaning 'to strip' or 'to plunder'. That word traces back to the Latin 'spoliare', 'to strip off' or 'to rob', built on the noun 'spolium', which literally meant the hide or skin stripped from an animal and, by extension, the booty or plunder taken from a defeated enemy. The earliest English sense kept this violent flavour of robbing and despoiling, and only later softened into the familiar ideas of food going bad or a person being overindulged. The same root survives in the rather formal word 'despoil', still meaning to plunder. For spelling, the regular '-ed' ending is the main point to remember, since British writers also see the alternative form 'spoilt' and can hesitate over which ending to use.

How the word is built

• spoil (to ruin or strip)
• -ed (past tense / past participle suffix)