Vandals

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Individuals who deliberately destroy or damage property
2. those who engage in destructive behavior towards art, culture, or public spaces
3. people whose actions reflect a disregard for the rights and possessions of others

Etymology: The Vandals were a Germanic people who, in 455, sacked Rome under their king Genseric. The sack left them with a reputation for senseless destruction that outlasted the events themselves. In the Enlightenment, Rome was idealized, and the Goths and Vandals were blamed for its ruin, even though historians think the Vandals were no more destructive than other invaders of the ancient world. The name took on its modern sense in the 1660s, when it began to mean a willful destroyer of what is beautiful or venerable. English poet John Dryden helped cement the image in 1694, writing of "Goths and Vandals, a rude Northern Race" who "did all the matchless Monuments deface." The Vandals did deliberately damage statues, which likely explains why their name became tied to attacks on art. The modern sense of the word was then pushed much further in 1794, when Henri Grégoire coined the French "vandalisme" to describe the destruction of artwork following the French Revolution. That term spread quickly across Europe, and English adopted it as "vandalism."

Synonyms: destroyers, defacers, saboteurs, raiders, looters

Antonyms: preservers, protectors, conservers, upholders, guardians