Other forms: vandals
A vandal is somebody who destroys property for the sake of destroying it. No profit, no purpose.
The pointlessness is what defines the word and what makes the crime so infuriating. It is named after the Vandals, a Germanic people who sacked Rome in 455, and the reputation has outlived them by fifteen centuries, which is a hard thing to shift. The crime is vandalism, usually charged as criminal damage. There is a broader use in cultural vandalism, meaning the destruction of something historically valuable.
1nounvandalA person who deliberately destroys property.
“Vandals had smashed every pane in the greenhouse.”
The Vandals came into the city of Rome and broke what was beautiful in it. Anybody who does that to a wall or a window now gets their name.
hooks ontocity
1660s, “willful destroyer of what is beautiful or venerable”, from Vandal, referring to a member of an ancient Germanic people, the Vandals, who are associated with senseless destruction as a result of their sack of Rome under King Genseric in 455. During the Enlightenment, Rome was idealized, while the Goths and Vandals were blamed for its destruction. The Vandals may not have been any more destructive than other invaders of ancient times, but they did inspire English poet John Dryden to write, Till Goths, and Vandals, a rude Northern race, Did all the matchless Monuments deface (1694). However, the Vandals did intentionally damage statues, which may be why their name is associated with the vandalism of art. The coining of French vandalisme by Henri Grégoire in 1794 to describe the destruction of artwork following the French Revolution popularized the idea further, and the term was quickly adopted across Europe, including as English vandalism.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA