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BURGLAR
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A thief who enters a building with intent to steal
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("burglar" is a kind of...):
stealer; thief (a criminal who takes property belonging to someone else with the intention of keeping it or selling it)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "burglar"):
cat burglar; housebreaker (a burglar who unlawfully breaks into and enters another person's house)
Derivation:
burglarise (commit a burglary; enter and rob a dwelling)
Context examples:
At first they were of a mind to let him enter the house and to kill him as a detected burglar; but they argued that if they were mixed up in an inquiry their own identity would at once be publicly disclosed and they would be open to further attacks.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Yes, it was by their light and that of the lady’s bedroom candle, that the burglars saw their way about.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Well, it seems to me that it is just possible that the arrival of this poor fellow William was not before, but after, the entrance of the burglar into the house.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
We must make it appear that burglars had done the thing.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
A gang of burglars acting in the country might be expected to vary the scene of their operations, and not to crack two cribs in the same district within a few days.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
How did the burglar know no one would hear it?
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Let us go round the house and see why this particular room was chosen by the burglar.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
He must have been a very poor burglar.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Naturally my first thought was of burglars.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Why any burglar should take such a thing passes my understanding, for it was only a plaster cast and of no real value whatever.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
