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• n  the act of stripping and taking by force

• Yet attempts to halt the despoliation have been, in most cases, limited and local.
• The Earl of Fitzwilliam's secretary and his estate agent spluttered in angry despair over the "incredible, appalling despoliation.
• To be sure, China is not one big, bucolic Iowa; all sorts of tensions over land use and workers' rights and free speech and endemic corruption and environmental despoliation loom .

• spoil
• spoliation
• spoilation
• despoilation
• despoilment