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STEALING
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I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
The act of taking something from someone unlawfully
Example:
the thieving is awful at Kennedy International
Synonyms:
larceny; stealing; theft; thievery; thieving
Classified under:
Nouns denoting acts or actions
Hypernyms ("stealing" is a kind of...):
felony (a serious crime (such as murder or arson))
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "stealing"):
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)
Derivation:
steal (take without the owner's consent)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Avoiding detection by moving carefully
Synonyms:
stealing; stealth
Classified under:
Nouns denoting acts or actions
Hypernyms ("stealing" is a kind of...):
concealing; concealment; hiding (the activity of keeping something secret)
Derivation:
steal (move stealthily)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
-ing form of the verb steal
Context examples:
Stealing backward glances as he ran, he was always ready to whirl around and down the overzealous pursuer that outran his fellows.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
He dared not go near Ruth's neighborhood in the daytime, but night found him lurking like a thief around the Morse home, stealing glimpses at the windows and loving the very walls that sheltered her.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
Imagine her dismay, on stealing a glance of timid admiration at the poet whose lines suggested an ethereal being fed on 'spirit, fire, and dew', to behold him devouring his supper with an ardor which flushed his intellectual countenance.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
Marianne entered the house with a heart swelling with emotion from the consciousness of being only eighty miles from Barton, and not thirty from Combe Magna; and before she had been five minutes within its walls, while the others were busily helping Charlotte to show her child to the housekeeper, she quitted it again, stealing away through the winding shrubberies, now just beginning to be in beauty, to gain a distant eminence; where, from its Grecian temple, her eye, wandering over a wide tract of country to the south-east, could fondly rest on the farthest ridge of hills in the horizon, and fancy that from their summits Combe Magna might be seen.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
But more than once, stealing into the room, when it was her watch off, she would catch the two men glaring ferociously at each other, wild animals the pair of them, in Hans's face the lust to kill, in Dennin's the fierceness and savagery of the cornered rat.
(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)
Hence it follows of necessity, that vast numbers of our people are compelled to seek their livelihood by begging, robbing, stealing, cheating, pimping, flattering, suborning, forswearing, forging, gaming, lying, fawning, hectoring, voting, scribbling, star-gazing, poisoning, whoring, canting, libelling, freethinking, and the like occupations: every one of which terms I was at much pains to make him understand.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
Better that than stealing the deer that thou art placed to guard, like some folk I know.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
The mist was spreading, and was now close up to the house, so that I could see it lying thick against the wall, as though it were stealing up to the windows.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
They are afraid of this Ghost Dog, for it has cunning greater than they, stealing from their camps in fierce winters, robbing their traps, slaying their dogs, and defying their bravest hunters.
(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)
Before I come here, said Uriah, stealing a look at us, as if he would have blighted the outer world to which we belonged, if he could, I was given to follies; but now I am sensible of my follies.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
