Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The process of becoming spoiled.
  • noun The condition of being spoiled.
  • noun Something that has been spoiled.
  • noun The degree to which something has been spoiled.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In printing, paper spoiled or wasted in presswork.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The part of something that has spoiled.
  • noun The process of spoiling.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the amount that has spoiled
  • noun the process of becoming spoiled
  • noun the act of spoiling something by causing damage to it

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

spoil +‎ -age

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Examples

  • The key to preventing spoilage is making sure the steaks are absolutely dry.

    Oh, Cecina! 2009

  • The key to preventing spoilage is making sure the steaks are absolutely dry.

    Oh, Cecina! 2009

  • The key to preventing spoilage is making sure the steaks are absolutely dry.

    Oh, Cecina! 2009

  • The key to preventing spoilage is making sure the steaks are absolutely dry.

    Oh, Cecina! 2009

  • The key to preventing spoilage is making sure the steaks are absolutely dry.

    Oh, Cecina! 2009

  • The key to preventing spoilage is making sure the steaks are absolutely dry.

    Oh, Cecina! 2009

  • The key to preventing spoilage is making sure the steaks are absolutely dry.

    Oh, Cecina! 2009

  • The key to preventing spoilage is making sure the steaks are absolutely dry.

    Oh, Cecina! 2009

  • The key to preventing spoilage is making sure the steaks are absolutely dry.

    Oh, Cecina! 2009

  • The key to preventing spoilage is making sure the steaks are absolutely dry.

    Oh, Cecina! 2009

Comments

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  • "The most popular explanation for the love of spices in the Middle Ages is that they were used to preserve meat from spoiling, or to cover up the taste of meat that had already gone off. This compelling but false idea constitutes something of an urban legend, a story so instinctively attractive that mere fact seems unable to wipe it out. Actually, spices don't do much to preserve meat compared with salting, smoking, pickling, or air curing. The bad taste of spoiled meat, in any event, won't be substantially allayed by spices, or anything else. ...

    Spices were very expensive, and meat was relatively cheap. ... an entire pig could be had for the price of a pound of the cheapest spice, pepper. ... Given the cost, trying to improve dubious meat with cloves or nutmeg would have been perverse, something like slicing Italian white truffles (currently upward of 800 dollars per pound) to liven up the taste of a fast-food cheeseburger."

    Paul Freedman, Out of the East: Spices and the Medieval Imagination (New Haven and London: Yale UP, 2008), 3, 4.

    October 9, 2017