Now rare. [ad. L. expīlātiōn-em, n. of action f. expīlāre: see prec.]
1. The action of pillaging; spoliation, plunder.
1563. Grindal, Let. Sir W. Cecil, Wks. (1843), 257. Take order … not to leave the poor tenants subject to the expilation of these country gentlemen.
1597. Daniel, Civ. Wares, II. cxiv. Whence … proceeds This rav’nous expilation of the state.
a. 1661. Fuller, Worthies, Sussex, III. 104. He was loth to go back to Bath, having formerly consented to the expilation of that Bishoprick.
1675. trans. Machiavelli’s Prince, xxvi. (Rtldg., 1883), 159. Taxes and expilations in the kingdom of Naples.
1885. R. W. Dixon, Hist. Ch. Eng., xxi. III. 536. This final expilation … avenged upon the son the sacrilege of the father.
b. concr. A collection made by plundering.
1715. M. Davies, Athen. Brit., I. Pref. 51. A compleat Collection or Expilation of all the tart Reparties … out of all the Play-Books that ever were printed in England.
† 2. Civil Law. (See quot.) Obs.
1730–6. in Bailey (folio).
1751. Chambers, Cycl., Expilation, in the civil law, the act of withdrawing, or diverting, something belonging to an inheritance, before any body had declared himself heir thereof.
1848. in Wharton, Law Lex.
