THEFT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does theft mean? 

• THEFT (noun)
  The noun THEFT has 1 sense:

1. the act of taking something from someone unlawfully

  Familiarity information: THEFT used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• THEFT (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The act of taking something from someone unlawfully

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

larceny; stealing; theft; thievery; thieving

Context example:

the thieving is awful at Kennedy International

Hypernyms ("theft" is a kind of...):

felony (a serious crime (such as murder or arson))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "theft"):

breach of trust with fraudulent intent (larceny after trust rather than after unlawful taking)

defalcation; embezzlement; misapplication; misappropriation; peculation (the fraudulent appropriation of funds or property entrusted to your care but actually owned by someone else)

pilferage (the act of stealing small amounts or small articles)

shoplifting; shrinkage (the act of stealing goods that are on display in a store)

robbery (larceny by threat of violence)

biopiracy (biological theft; illegal collection of indigenous plants by corporations who patent them for their own use)

grand larceny; grand theft (larceny of property having a value greater than some amount (the amount varies by locale))

petit larceny; petty; petty larceny (larceny of property having a value less than some amount (the amount varies by locale))

skimming (failure to declare income in order to avoid paying taxes on it)

rustling (the stealing of cattle)

 Context examples 

He saw your theft, but could not give the alarm, as it was just possible that you were taking the papers to your brother in London.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

This first theft marked Buck as fit to survive in the hostile Northland environment.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

When the inspector and a constable entered the house, Arthur, who had stood sullenly with his arms folded, asked me whether it was my intention to charge him with theft.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Petty thefts, wanton assaults, purposeless outrage—to the man who held the clue all could be worked into one connected whole.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A disorder characterized by the recurrent failure to resist the impulse to steal items of little intrinsic value; the individual experiences a rising subjective sense of tension before the theft and a sense of gratification or relief during the theft.

(Kleptomania, NCI Thesaurus)

That the hair was her own, she instantaneously felt as well satisfied as Marianne; the only difference in their conclusions was, that what Marianne considered as a free gift from her sister, Elinor was conscious must have been procured by some theft or contrivance unknown to herself.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

They look upon fraud as a greater crime than theft, and therefore seldom fail to punish it with death; for they allege, that care and vigilance, with a very common understanding, may preserve a man’s goods from thieves, but honesty has no defence against superior cunning; and, since it is necessary that there should be a perpetual intercourse of buying and selling, and dealing upon credit, where fraud is permitted and connived at, or has no law to punish it, the honest dealer is always undone, and the knave gets the advantage.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

“There have,” said I, “been numerous petty thefts.”

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He had once been a skilful sculptor and had earned an honest living, but he had taken to evil courses and had twice already been in jail—once for a petty theft, and once, as we had already heard, for stabbing a fellow-countryman.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Some were undone by lawsuits; others spent all they had in drinking, whoring, and gaming; others fled for treason; many for murder, theft, poisoning, robbery, perjury, forgery, coining false money, for committing rapes, or sodomy; for flying from their colours, or deserting to the enemy; and most of them had broken prison; none of these durst return to their native countries, for fear of being hanged, or of starving in a jail; and therefore they were under the necessity of seeking a livelihood in other places.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)