Did you know?
At one point in Frodo’s journey in The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien depicts an ancient statue overlooking a crossroads: “Its head was gone, and in its place was set in mockery a round rough-hewn stone, rudely painted … in the likeness of a grinning face with one large red eye in the midst of its forehead.” The statue had been vandalized by orcs, but the roots of vandalize have more in common with the name of a Tolkien hero. Vandalize comes from the noun vandal, which was originally capitalized and referred to a member of a Germanic people who lived south of the Baltic Sea and sacked Rome in the year 455 CE. This sacking is what likely led to the use of the lower-case vandal for someone who damages or destroys property. The Late Latin word for such a Vandal was Vandalī, a word probably borrowed from a Germanic verb meaning “wend, turn” that also gave rise to the Old English Ēarendel, the name of a mythological figure that inspired Tolkien’s creation of Eärendil, a mariner who wends his way across the sky of Middle Earth carrying the morning star.
Examples of vandalize in a Sentence
Mallory Moench, TIME, 3 Apr. 2024
When city officials expanded it to London’s outskirts last August, resistance coalesced online, and some of the cameras that monitor ULEZ compliance were vandalized.
—Joe Mayes, Fortune Europe, 26 Mar. 2024
Officers say Knauss cut into the roof of a townhome near 51st and Sweetwater avenues, vandalized the HVAC system, sprayed foam into the drainage and sewage pipes and sealed them shut.
—The Arizona Republic, 14 Mar. 2024
Then, in a show of public disrespect for the vehicles that weekend, one car was attacked and vandalized in San Francisco’s Chinatown during a Lunar New Year celebration.
—Trisha Thadani, Washington Post, 23 Feb. 2024
The spectator no longer bothers to vandalize the glass doors of the cinema.
—Elizabeth Barber, Harper's Magazine, 9 Feb. 2024
Hospitals have been vandalized, and warehouses and containers storing food and essential supplies across the city have been broken into in recent weeks as the social fabric frays.
—Hira Humayun, CNN, 3 Apr. 2024
Two years ago, an obelisk erected in 1874 to mark the spot where Cook was killed, on Kealakekua Bay, was vandalized.
—Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker, 1 Apr. 2024
The harms of graffiti are most often seen with small mom and pop enterprises navigating high-crime neighborhoods, losing foot traffic after having their businesses vandalized.
—Frank Shyong, Los Angeles Times, 28 Mar. 2024
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'vandalize.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near vandalize
Cite this Entry
“Vandalize.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vandalize. Accessed 23 Apr. 2024.
Copy CitationKids Definition
vandalize
verb
Legal Definition
vandalize
transitive verb
Share