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spoil

/spɔɪl/verb, noun

spoil is spelled S-P-O-I-L: 5 letters and one syllable. It appears 6.5 times per million words in written English, the 9,463rd most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a verb, spoil means “To ruin; to damage in such a way as to make undesirable or unusable” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).

How many letters and syllables are in spoil?

Letters5: S-P-O-I-L
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing6.5 times per million words; the 9,463rd most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Pairs people search
Same letters

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is spoil?

Spoil appears 6.5 times per million words in written English, the 9,463rd most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce spoil?

  • /spɔɪl/

Spoil has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-spoil.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with spoil

Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).

spoil vs spoilt0 B

Also written: spoilt.

Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

What rhymes with spoil?

No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as spoil.

Spelled with the same letters in another order: polis.

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of spoil

  • spoils present, singular, he/she/it, plural
  • spoiling participle, present
  • spoiled participle, past
  • spoilt participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does spoil mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

verb

  1. 1

    archaicTo strip (someone who has been killed or defeated) of arms or armour.

  2. 2

    archaicTo strip or deprive (someone) of possessions; to rob, despoil.

  3. 3

    archaicTo plunder, pillage (a city, country etc.).

  4. 4

    obsoleteTo carry off (goods) by force; to steal.

  5. 5

    To ruin; to damage in such a way as to make undesirable or unusable.

    All this sun spoils me for vacations in the far North.

  6. 6

    To ruin the character of, by overindulgence; to coddle or pamper to excess.

  7. 7

    To go bad; to become sour or rancid; to decay.

    Make sure you put the milk back in the fridge; otherwise it will spoil.

  8. 8

    To render (a ballot) invalid by deliberately defacing.

noun

  1. 1

    Plunder taken from an enemy or victim.

  2. 2

    archaicThe act of taking plunder from an enemy or victim; spoliation, pillage, rapine.

  3. 3

    Material (such as rock or earth) removed in the course of an excavation, or in mining or dredging. Tailings. Such material could be utilised somewhere else.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Spoil in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchpiller (to strip), gâter, gâcher (to ruin), tourner (to become sour or rancid, to decay), dépouilles, butin (plunder taken from an enemy or victim)
Germanplündern (to strip), ruinieren, verderben, kaputtmachen (to ruin), verwöhnen, verziehen (to coddle or pamper)
Portuguesedespojar (to strip), estragar, arruinar (to ruin), pilhagem, saque (plunder taken from an enemy or victim), mimar (to coddle or pamper)
Spanishexpoliar, despojar (to strip), echar a perder, estropear, dar al traste (to ruin), malcriar (to coddle or pamper)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does spoil come from?

From Middle English spoilen, spuylen, borrowed from Old French espoillier, espollier, espuler, from Latin spoliō, spoliāre (“pillage, ruin, spoil”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after spoil