spolia

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

spolia pl (plural only)

1. Old objects, artifacts, and/or sculptural elements reused in a later work of architecture.
   • 2010, Anthony Grafton, Glenn W. Most, Salvatore Settis, The Classical Tradition, page 904:

     In the field of architecture the use of spolia began with Constantine.

   • 2011, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Jerusalem: The Biography – A History of the Middle East, page 305:

     The sultan did not so much destroy and rebuild as adapt and embroider, reusing the gorgeous spolia of the Crusaders with their foliate patterns, capitals and wetleaf acanthus; his architecture is thus constructed with the very symbols of his enemies, which makes it hard to distinguish between the buildings of the Crusaders and Saladin.

   • 2016, Zeynep Yürekli, Architecture and Hagiography in the Ottoman Empire, page 140:

     The conspicuous use of spolia in the Mihaloğlu buildings of the shrine of Syyid Gazi is a remarkable departure from the dominant architectural culture of the time.

• spolia opima

spolia

1. third-person singular past historic of spolier

spolia

1. inflection of spoliare:
   1. third-person singular present indicative
   2. second-person singular imperative

• pisola, posali

spoliā

1. second-person singular present active imperative of spoliō

spolia

1. nominative/accusative/vocative plural of spolium

• “spolia”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “spolia”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin

Borrowed from French spolier.

a spolia (third-person singular present spoliează, past participle spoliat) 1st conj.

1. to despoil