Library / English Dictionary

THIEVE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Take by theft

Example:

Someone snitched my wallet!

Synonyms:

cop; glom; hook; knock off; snitch; thieve

Classified under:

Verbs of buying, selling, owning

Hypernyms (to "thieve" is one way to...):

rip; rip off; steal (take without the owner's consent)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

thievery; thieving (the act of taking something from someone unlawfully)

Credits

 Context examples: 

“When Em'ly got strong again,” said Mr. Peggotty, after another short interval of silence, “she cast about to leave that good young creetur, and get to her own country. The husband was come home, then; and the two together put her aboard a small trader bound to Leghorn, and from that to France. She had a little money, but it was less than little as they would take for all they done. I'm a'most glad on it, though they was so poor! What they done, is laid up wheer neither moth or rust doth corrupt, and wheer thieves do not break through nor steal. Mas'r Davy, it'll outlast all the treasure in the wureld.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

So she poured all the vinegar down; and the thieves said, “What a heavy dew there is!”

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

But White Fang soon learned to differentiate between thieves and honest men, to appraise the true value of step and carriage.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

“I will show you that there are better men left in England than ever went thieving to France.”

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“It is for me to ask you that,” he shrieked, “you thieves! Spies and thieves! I have caught you, have I? You are in my power. I’ll serve you!”

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

The thieves ransacked the library and got very little for their pains.

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

Then away rattled the nuts down among the boughs and one of the thieves cried, “Bless me, it is hailing.”

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

One thing, in this connection, White Fang quickly learnt, and that was that a thieving god was usually a cowardly god and prone to run away at the sounding of the alarm.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

When you spoke last night of taking precautions I remember that it passed through my mind that this was probably the last parish in England to which the thief or thieves would be likely to turn their attention—which shows that I have still much to learn.

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

At last the thieves found him out, and lifted him up in their hands.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)