Meaning

noun (law) the intentional destruction of a document or an alteration of it that destroys its value as evidence

noun the act of stripping and taking by force

originFrom Late Middle English spoliacioun (“looting, robbery, theft; an instance of this; (ecclesiastical) wrongful deprivation of the emoluments of a benefice due to another”), from Anglo-Norman spoliacioun, espolïacion, and directly from their etymon spoliātiō (“plundering, robbing”), from spoliāre (“to deprive or strip of clothing or covering, unclothe, uncover; (by extension) to pillage, plunder;…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0