defacement.

The act or result of damaging an appearance by marking, cutting, or otherwise spoiling its surface.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• defacement of a monument
• deliberate defacement

On the page

The defacement stopped precisely at the painted eyes.

Deliberate defacement had turned the warning into a row of meaningless scratches.

Usage notes

Primary category: horror. Forms: Usually uncountable; plural defacements for separate acts. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings.