[f. SPOIL v.1 + -ER.]

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  1.  One who pillages, plunders, or robs; a ravager, spoliator, despoiler.

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1535.  Coverdale, 2 Kings xvii. 20. Therfore dyd ye Lorde cast awaye all ye sede of Israel,… and delyuered them in to the handes of the spoylers.

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1598.  Barret, Theor. Warres, I. ii. 11. Many disorders doe happen by the disorder of couetous spoilers.

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1611.  Bible, Isaiah, xxi. 2. The treacherous dealer dealeth treacherously, and the spoiler spoileth.

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1680.  Otway, Orphan, IV. vii. A cruel Spoiler came, Cropt this fair Rose, and rifled all it’s Sweetness.

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1760–72.  H. Brooke, Fool of Qual. (1809), III. 65. One tenth for the use of the society…, and the other nine for the benefit of the spoilers.

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1790.  Burke, Fr. Rev., Sel. Wks. 1893, II. 192. Can any philosophic spoiler undertake to demonstrate … the comparative evil of having a … portion of landed property.

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1844.  H. H. Wilson, Brit. India, II. 81. Driving them into the interior,… leaving their fields and homes to the spoiler.

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1877.  Miss A. B. Edwards, Up Nile, vii. 181. One can easily imagine how these spoilers sacked and ravaged all before them.

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  fig.  1821.  Lamb, Elia, I. My Relations. I hate people who meet Time half-way. I am for no compromise with that inevitable spoiler.

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1824.  Praed, Athens, 199. If the flush of youth … Could bid the spoiler turn his scythe away, Or snatch one flower from darkness and decay.

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  b.  Said of animals, insects, etc.

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1774.  Goldsm., Nat. Hist. (1776), IV. 225. One of them stands centinel upon a tree, while the rest are plundering…: in the mean time, the rest of the spoilers pursue their work with great silence and assiduity.

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1779.  Cowper, Pine-apple & Bee, 5. On eager wing the spoiler came, And search’d for crannies in the frame.

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  2.  One who or that which spoils, destroys, injures, mars, etc.

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1577.  B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb., 35. Chyche … is a great spoyler of land.

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1648.  Hexham, II. Brodder,… a Marrer, or a Spoiler of worke.

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1694.  Motteux, Rabelais, V. (1737), 215. Wheadling Gablers,… Spoilers of Paper.

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1733.  W. Ellis, Chiltern & Vale Farm., 297. Camock … is a greater Spoiler of the Corn.

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1766.  Goldsm., Vicar, x. The sun was dreaded as an enemy to the skin without doors, and the fire as a spoiler of the complexion within.

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1900.  Westm. Gaz., 28 Nov., 2/1. The sun is a spoiler of intrinsic colour.

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