spoils of war

noun

"spoils-of-war" is a 11-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“spoils of war” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
13
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Any profits extracted as the result of winning a war or other military activity.

Corpus desk

Index EN-spoils-of-war · spoils of war · English

spoils of war · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 13 letters
  • VOW-4 4 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "S" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Key facts for spoils of war
PropertyValue
Headwordspoils of war
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters13
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “spoils of war” in English

spoils of warranks outside the top 100,000 English headwords, in the long tail of specialist, archaic, or seldom-used vocabulary, exactly the territory where a reader stops mid-sentence to double-check spelling.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

spoils of war is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Any profits extracted as the result of winning a war or other military activity.".

spoils of war doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.

This entry carries no recorded etymology, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct English form is spoils of war, spelled S-P-O-I-L-S- -O-F- -W-A-R.

Definition

  1. 1
    Any profits extracted as the result of winning a war or other military activity.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how spoils of war appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Theſe ſo great Slaughters, Nations mighty dread, / Like Whirlwinds through ſo many Cities ſpread, / Which might have been anothers cloſing Fame, / Were but his Marches Actions; thus he came: / And in ſo many glorious Conqueſts ſhar'd / The Spoils of War, while he for War prepar'd.
  2. For according to that Hiſtorian [Josephus] upon Nebuchadnezzar [II]'s coming to Babylon in the year after, upon his father's death, and becoming Lord of all his father's Empire, He with the SPOILS of WAR magnificently repair'd, and deckt the Temple of Bel, &c.

This word in other languages

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "spoils of war"?
"spoils of war" is spelled S-P-O-I-L-S- -O-F- -W-A-R.
What does "spoils of war" mean?
As a noun, "spoils of war" means: Any profits extracted as the result of winning a war or other military activity.
What language does "spoils of war" come from?
"spoils of war" is a English word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
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Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list