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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
Elena Becatoros, Los Angeles Times, 16 Feb. 2026
Protests that broke out across the nation spilled into downtown Aurora, where buildings were vandalized and tear gas filled the air as the APD worked to disperse crowds.
—Denise Crosby, Chicago Tribune, 15 Feb. 2026
The vehicles were vandalized and broken into, and several things were stolen including guns, FBI identification cards and documents that included addresses, phone numbers and other personal information of some FBI employees.
—ABC News, 13 Feb. 2026
And yet word of the clinic’s existence soon reached security officers, who vandalized it and interrogated the doctor who ran it.
—Cora Engelbrecht, New Yorker, 11 Feb. 2026
See All Example Sentences for vandalize
Cite this Entry
“Vandalize.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vandalize. Accessed 19 Feb. 2026.
Copy CitationKids Definition
vandalize
verb
Legal Definition
vandalize
transitive verb
