Definition of "spoliation" [spo•li•a•tion]

• The act of despoiling or plundering. (noun)
• Seizure of neutral vessels at sea by a belligerent power in time of war. (noun)
• Law Intentional alteration or destruction of a document. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Striking a pleading for negligent spoliation is a drastic sanction that is appropriate only where the missing evidence deprive [s] the moving party of the ability to establish his or her defense or case."
• "Let us, then, endeavor to indicate that beneficent force which tends progressively to overcome the maleficent force to which we have given the name spoliation, and the existence of which is only too well explained by reason and proved by experience."
• "Poor Don Juan found himself thus unexpectedly between two horns of a dilemma, the result in either case being the same -- that is, the spoliation of the little _pecadillo_ he had put away against old age."