Spoliation :  n 1: (law) the intentional destruction of a document or an alteration of it that destroys its value as evidence 2: the act of stripping and taking by force [syn: spoil, spoilation, despoilation, despoilment, despoliation]

banditry, bereavement, bloodbath, blue ruin, breakup, brigandage, brigandism, carnage, consumption, cost, damage, damnation, dead loss, debit, decimation, denial, denudation, depredation, deprivation, desolation, despoiling, despoilment, despoliation, destruction, detriment, devastation, direption, disintegration, disorganization, dispossession, disruption, dissolution, divestment, expense, foraging, foray, forfeit, forfeiture, freebooting, havoc, hecatomb, holocaust, injury, looting, loser, losing, losing streak, loss, marauding, perdition, pillage, pillaging, plunder, plundering, privation, raid, raiding, ransacking, rape, rapine, ravage, ravagement, ravaging, ravishment, razzia, reiving, rifling, robbery, ruin, ruination, sack, sacking, sacrifice, shambles, slaughter, spoiling, stripping, taking away, total loss, undoing, vandalism, waste, wrack, wrack and ruin, wreck,

Spoliation : \Spo`li*a"tion\, n. [L. spoliatio; cf. F. spoliation. See Spoil, v. t.] 1. The act of plundering; robbery; deprivation; despoliation. Legal spoliation, which will impoverish one part of the community in order to corrupt the remainder. --Sir G. C. Lewis. 2. Robbery or plunder in war; especially, the authorized act or practice of plundering neutrals at sea. 3. (Eccl. Law) (a) The act of an incumbent in taking the fruits of his benefice without right, but under a pretended title. --Blackstone. (b) A process for possession of a church in a spiritual court. 4. (Law) Injury done to a document.

SPOLIATION, Eng. eccl. law. The name of a suit sued out in the spiritual court to recover for the fruits of the church, or for the church itself. F. N. B. 85. 2. It is also a waste of church property by an ecclesiastical person. 3 Bl. Com. 90.

SPOLIATION, torts. Destruction of a thing by the act of a stranger; as, the erasure or alteration of a writing by the act of a stranger, is called spoliation. This has not the effect to destroy its character or legal effect. 1 Greenl. Ev. Sec. 566. 2. BySpoliation : is also understood the total destruction of a thing; as, the spoliation of papers, by the captured party, is generally regarded as proof of. guilt, but in America it is open to explanation, except in certain cases where there is a vehement presumption of bad faith. 2 Wheat. 227, 241; 1 Dods. Adm. 480, 486. See Alteration.