Spoilt

How to spell spoilt

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce spoilt

What does spoilt mean?

1. verbPast tense and past participle of spoil: ruined, damaged, or caused to go bad.
2. adjectiveOf a person, harmed in character by too much indulgence; or of food, no longer fit to eat.

Spoilt in a sentence

• verb

  The milk had spoilt after sitting out in the warm kitchen all afternoon.

• adjective

  The spoilt child demanded a new toy the moment they walked into the shop.

• verb

  Heavy rain spoilt the outdoor reception that the couple had planned for months.

• adjective

  She tossed the spoilt leftovers into the bin without a second look.

Where does spoilt come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word goes back to the Latin verb spoliare, which meant 'to strip', especially to strip the armour or hide from a slain enemy, and so by extension 'to plunder' or 'to rob'. That verb was built on the noun spolium, originally the skin or hide stripped from an animal, and later the booty or plunder carried off after a battle. English took the word in during the 1200s through Old French espoillier, and at first it really did mean to despoil or pillage a place. Over the following centuries the violent sense softened into the familiar everyday meanings: to ruin or damage something, to let food go bad, and to over-indulge a person until their character suffers. The spelling trap lives in the ending, because British and Canadian writers use the older -t form 'spoilt' alongside the regular -ed form 'spoiled', and it is easy to forget which final letter the sentence wants.

How the word is built

• spoil (from Latin spoliare, to strip or plunder)
• -t (past-tense and past-participle inflection)