spoilt or spoiled??

When you use "spoil" to mean "impair the quality of", you can use either "spoiled" or "spoilt".

• 
  
  (o) My father spoiled me.
  


• 
  
  (o) My father spoilt me.
  

When you use "spoil" in the sense of "rob", you cannot use "spoilt".

• 
  
  (o) They spoiled us of our property.
  


• 
  
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Hi Anonymous,

spoil (v) "-ed" or "spoilt"

in the sense " excessively indulged-pampered too much" you can say either.

hope this helps

When you use "spoil" in the sense of "rob", you cannot use "spoilt".

• 
  
  (o) They spoiled us of our property.
  
  
• 
  
  (x) They spoilt us of our property.
  


Paco - I'm afraid this is not used this way anymore (it's marked obsolete in my dictionary). You can say "despoiled" -- that sounds sort of archaic, but at least peopl

Hello Khoff

Is it archaic? OED suggests the sense is still alive, though I couldn't find so many sentences of its kind of use in Google.

• 
  
  spoiled me/you/him/her/it/us/them 180+5+576+22+58+104+164=987
  
  
• 
  
  spoilt me/you/him/her/it/us/them 0+0+8+0+20+0+0+0=28
  
paco

Paco - I could imagine reading "the army despoiled the countryside," but "they spoiled us of our property" just sounds very strange. It's possible it's used that way in Britain, I suppose. Let's see if anyone else has an opinion to offer.

Hello Khoff

I should admit the usage of "spoil someone of something" is archaic. Here are some sentences I extracted from Google. All of them are in classic documents like the Bible or Greek myths.

• 
  
  O King, we have been in the country of the infidels and they spoiled us of nothing.
  


• 
  
  Lycurgus then spoiled him of the armor which Mars had

QUOTE: They spoiled us of our property.

Well, I learn something every day! I'm 54 and I had never heard this.

By the way what about:

Learnt - learned??

Are both of the words correct? I use 'learnt' but sometimes

Google Results

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  EDU sites : I learned/learnt 611,000/12,300 I have learned/learnt 162,000/52,100 learned man/learnt man 6530/4
  


• 
  
  UK sites : I learned/learnt 19,300/13,400 I have learned/learnt 67,800/52,300 learned man/learnt man 4060/3
  

1) American speakers mostly use "learned" for the past form.

2) "Learned" and "learnt"

Are you in Britain or America?
Spoilt is British English, spoiled is American English.