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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
Cat Dawson,
ARTnews.com,
3 July 2026
The coating, supplied by Atlantic Industrial Coatings under a no-bid contract, began peeling after the pool was refilled, while bright green algae appeared as the president claimed without evidence that it had been vandalized.
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Adam England,
PEOPLE,
2 July 2026
That marble sculpture of George III, vandalized in 1775, was now beheaded altogether, to the cheers of soldiers.
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Sarah M.s. Pearsall,
The Conversation,
2 July 2026
The protests came after months of unrest that have drawn international criticism as foreigners have been driven from their homes and seen their businesses and property vandalized.
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Reuters,
NBC news,
1 July 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 6 Jul. 2026.
Copy CitationKids Definition
vandalize
verb
Legal Definition
vandalize
transitive verb
