Spoiler

How to spell spoiler

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce spoiler

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does spoiler mean?

1. nounA piece of information that reveals an important plot detail and ruins the surprise for someone who has not yet seen or read it.
2. nounAn aerodynamic device fitted to a car or aircraft to control airflow, reduce lift, or improve stability.

Spoiler in a sentence

• She posted a spoiler about the season finale before anyone had watched it.

• The mechanic bolted a rear spoiler onto the sports car to improve grip at speed.

• The review carried a spoiler warning at the top so readers could skip the ending.

• The pilot raised the wing spoiler to slow the aircraft after landing.

Where does spoiler come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word grows out of the verb 'spoil', which English took from Old French espoillier in the 1200s, itself from the Latin spoliare, meaning 'to strip, rob, or plunder'. That Latin verb was built on spolium, which originally named the hide or skin stripped from a slain animal and then came to mean war booty taken from a defeated enemy. The early English sense was very physical: to spoil was to despoil, to seize goods by force. Over time the meaning softened toward 'to ruin, damage, or cause to go bad', as when food spoils. The agent suffix '-er' was added much later to name a thing that does the spoiling, giving us both the aerodynamic flap that spoils airflow and the careless reveal that spoils a story's surprise. The spelling trap is simply the 'oi' digraph followed by the unstressed '-er' ending, which sounds like a vague schwa.

How the word is built

• spoil (from Latin spoliare: to strip or plunder)
• -er (agent/instrument suffix: the thing that spoils)