Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The unlawful taking of the property of another; larceny.
  • noun An instance of such taking.
  • noun Obsolete Something stolen.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The act of stealing; in law, larceny (which see): compare also robbery.
  • noun Something stolen; a loss by stealing.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Law) The act of stealing; specifically, the felonious taking and removing of personal property, with an intent to deprive the rightful owner of the same; larceny.
  • noun rare The thing stolen.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The act of stealing property.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the act of taking something from someone unlawfully

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old English thīefth.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Old English þȳft, þēoft, earlier þīefþ, þēofþ, from Proto-Germanic *þiubiþō, from *þeubaz (“thief”). Cognate with Old Norse þeoft, þeofð and (obsolete) Dutch diefte. Compare thief, -th.

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