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.
Our car was vandalized in the parking lot.
he decided to vandalize the store because the owner had kicked him out
Recent Examples on the WebAt the University of Pennsylvania, officials say a campus statue was vandalized with antisemitic graffiti and are calling on demonstrators — from Penn and other area schools — to disband.—Rachel Treisman, NPR, 29 Apr. 2024 Someone vandalized the men’s bathroom April 20 VEHICLE THEFT: 1:37 a.m. in the 1100 block of El Solyo Avenue.—Anne Gelhaus, The Mercury News, 23 Apr. 2024 Surveillance video shared on social media by the chapter showed a man with a yellow t-shirt and jeans surveying the flag pole at the Titusville, Florida, nonprofit before proceeding to vandalize it on Tuesday evening.—Sarah Rumpf-Whitten, Fox News, 6 Apr. 2024 Police did not provide a number of arrests on Saturday, but say that since Sunday, 10 people were arrested for various acts of disorderly conduct, including but not limited to lighting fires on roadways, using pyrotechnics, and intentionally vandalizing a police motorcycle.—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
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.
Share