spoilage

C2+ Topic:Cause, Change & Process

US /ˈspɔɪlɪdʒ/ UK /ˈspɔɪlɪdʒ/ See IPA manual

noun

Meanings

1

noun
the process or result of food or goods becoming unfit for use

Refrigeration slows the spoilage of fresh produce.

Thesaurus

Synonyms

1 noun · the process or result of... decay deterioration rot decomposition putrefaction

Opposites

preservation freshness

Word family

Related forms spoil spoiled spoilt

Etymology

From spoil + -age; spoil comes from Old French espoillier, from Latin spoliare ('to strip, plunder'), from spolium ('booty, hide stripped from an animal').

spoliare Latin spolium Latin

View etymology graph ->

Topics

Cause, Change & Process

# spoilage

**Type:** Word
**Level:** C2+
**Part of speech:** noun
**IPA (US):** ˈspɔɪlɪdʒ
**IPA (UK):** ˈspɔɪlɪdʒ

## Meanings
1. the process or result of food or goods becoming unfit for use

## Examples
- Refrigeration slows the spoilage of fresh produce.

## Synonyms
- decay
- deterioration
- rot
- decomposition
- putrefaction

## Antonyms
- preservation
- freshness

## Related Forms
- spoil
- spoiled
- spoilt

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: spoliare
- Root: spolium

## Etymology
From spoil + -age; spoil comes from Old French espoillier, from Latin spoliare ('to strip, plunder'), from spolium ('booty, hide stripped from an animal').

## AI Etymology
Spoilage comes from spoil + -age; spoil comes from Old French espoillier, from Latin spoliare ('to strip, plunder'), from spolium ('booty, hide stripped from an animal'). The historical chain includes Latin spoliare and Latin spolium. Older glosses in the chain include "to strip, plunder" and "booty, hide stripped from an animal", which help explain the semantic range of the modern word. Morphologically, spoilage is best read as compound, suffixal formation, and borrowing, yielding an English noun shaped by both form history and later usage. In current English it functions as a noun, with the sense "the process or result of food or goods becoming unfit for use". related forms include spoil, spoiled, and spoilt. The result is an English noun whose etymology preserves the older forms while supporting the word's specialized modern meaning.

## Topics
- Cause, Change & Process

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spoilage

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