0 present participle of despoil
1 to make a place less attractive especially by taking things away from it by force:
Many of the tombs had been despoiled.
There are occasions when despoiling of green belt needs to be remedied, and sometimes that is done by the proper use of filling.
We are despoiling the edges of our cities with the revolting waste that we seem to generate.
I agree that it is essential that property is safeguarded, that damage is not done and that despoiling and destroying are discouraged.
It would not mean despoiling the parks, because we should not have to erect large structures but could use the parks themselves as the amphitheatre.
Most of the argument one hears today is that in many cases the agricultural community is despoiling the countryside.
This is the sort of thing which is despoiling our country and using scarce building resources for the wrong type of development.
They are despoiling one of the largest sources of protein in the world.
That is a desperately important issue because at present we are despoiling vast amounts of the world's environment.
