spoiled, ppl. a.
(spɔɪld, -lt)
[f. spoil v.1]
1. a. Pillaged, plundered; ravaged. Obs. or arch.
| c 1440 Promp. Parv. 470 Spoylyd, or spolyyd, spoliatus. 1550 T. Lever Serm. (Arb.) 94 For your charitable pytye of myserable spoiled people. 1598 W. Phillip tr. Linschoten 191/2 For that a whole day we could see nothing els, but spoyled men set on shore. 1624 3rd Rep. Hist. MSS. Comm. 32/2 Theophilus, the poor Bishop of miserable spoiled Llandaff. 1637 Marmion Cupid & Psyche ii. iii, There's not a man forsaken, Or god, for my sake, that bewayles his deare, Or bathes his spoyled bosome with a teare. |
| absol. 1611 Bible Amos v. 9 The Lord..strengtheneth the spoiled against the strong: so that the spoiled shall come against the fortresse. |
b. Taken as spoil.
rare—1.
| 1718 Pope Iliad xvi. 612 What grief..must Glaucus undergo, If these spoil'd arms adorn a Grecian foe! |
† 2. Of wood: Stripped of bark.
Obs.—1| c 1515 King's Coll. Cambr., Estimate, Tymbre: Remayneth in store of former provision ynowgh redy spoyled to perfourme all the saide Stalles and Rodelofte. |
3. a. Deprived of good or effective qualities or properties by injury, disease, etc.; damaged, impaired, injured; defective.
| 1597 A. M. tr. Guillemeau's Fr. Chirurg. 33 How we ought to extirpate the spoylede & superfluouse fingers. 1837 Carlyle Fr. Rev. i. iii. iii, Our new Duke d'Orléans... Never yet made Admiral, and now turning the corner of his fortieth year, with spoiled blood and prospects. 1856 Brit. Alm. 94 Spoiled stamps. 1879 St. George's Hosp. Rep. IX. 527 The 6 spoiled eyes were found in 3 males and 3 females. |
b. spoiled five,
= spoil-five s.v. spoil-.
| 1842 Lever J. Hinton xix, The worthy priest..was deep in a game of spoiled five with the farmer. |
c. Of a vote or ballot paper: rendered invalid.
| 1944 Federal Reporter (U.S.) CXXXVIII. 248/1 In the election..201 [employees] cast ballots, with the result 39 unchallenged votes for United, 51 for International..7 votes were challenged spoiled, or blank. 1958 W. Mackenzie Free Elections xv. 131 Even if there is compulsory voting, this general dissent may express itself through the proportion of ‘spoiled papers’ handed in. Ibid. 136 Administrative difficulties arise not over papers that are clearly ‘spoiled’ but over marginal cases. 1973 Irish Times 2 Mar. 8/1 Electorate, 37,299... Spoiled votes, 488. 1976 Guardian 17 Apr. 24/3 There was only one spoiled paper in the 94 per cent poll. |
d. spoiled nun,
spoiled priest, a nun or priest who has repudiated her or his vocation.
| 1904 S. Joyce Dublin Diary (1962) 26 He is the spoiled priest to his finger tips. 1916 J. Joyce Portrait of Artist (1969) i. 35 He had heard his father say that she was a spoiled nun. c 1932 F. Scott Fitzgerald in A. Mizener Far Side of Paradise (1951) 307 The novel should do this. Show a man who is a natural idealist, a spoiled priest. 1977 Times Lit. Suppl. 13 May 593/1 Romantic wickedness (or, in O'Flaherty's own spoiled-priest phrase, ‘romantic sin’). |
4. Of persons,
esp. children: Injured in character by excessive indulgence, lenience, or deference.
| 1648 Hexham ii. s.v. Bedorven, A spoiled child, by giving it his will too much, or by cockering him. c 1779 Whitefoord Papers (1898) 166 He was..a kind of spoil'd child whom you must humour in all his ways. 1825 Scott Betrothed iii, Some of the petty resentment of a spoiled domestic. 1849 Macaulay Hist. Eng. v. I. 619 The spoiled darling of the court and of the populace. 1884 St. James's Gaz. 9 July 6/2 Prince Victor Napoleon is, in almost every sense of the term, a spoiled child. |