despoliation

• Rhymes: -eɪʃən

despoliation (countable and uncountable, plural despoliations)

1. A stripping or plundering; spoliation.
   • 1939 September, D. S. Barrie, “The Railways of South Wales”, in Railway Magazine, page 165:

     Time has taken a terrible revenge upon mankind for his despoliation of the valleys and his defilement of the mountains, yet the industries and the railways of South Wales still put the bravest front upon an outlook which all may hope is becoming less saddening and less grim.

• despoil

• “despoliation”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

• depositional, optionalised