THIEF • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Thief

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/θif/ Listen

noun

Thief n. (pl. thieves)

One who steals; one who commits theft or larceny. See Theft. "There came a privy thief, men clepeth death." "Where thieves break through and steal."

A waster in the snuff of a candle.

Thief catcher. Same as Thief taker.

Thief leader, one who leads or takes away a thief.

Thief taker, one whose business is to find and capture thieves and bring them to justice.

Thief tube, a tube for withdrawing a sample of a liquid from a cask.

Thieves' vinegar, a kind of aromatic vinegar for the sick room, taking its name from the story that thieves, by using it, were enabled to plunder, with impunity to health, in the great plague at London. (Eng.)

Synonyms: Robber; pilferer. Thief, Robber. A thief takes our property by stealth; a robber attacks us openly, and strips us by main force. "Take heed, have open eye, for thieves do foot by night." "Some roving robber calling to his fellows."

See images of 'Thief'

Etymology of 'Thief'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Thief" Quotes from Famous Books

... "He's just a common thief!" declared Nola, with flushed cheek and resentful eye, as Frances fell in beside her for the ...

— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden

... exclaimed looking around the room. "Just an ordinary self-convicted thief! That's what I call her, and nothing else. And here we all stood like a lot of ninnies. Why, if I'd done my duty I'd have locked the door ...

— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... a dark room. There was only a tallow candle burning in the corner, and in the room were huddled twenty-five human beings. Along the walls were ranged the bunks—one above the other—covered with rotting quilts and unwashed coverings. Each of these rented for sixpence a night to any thief or beggar who chose to apply for lodging—no distinction being made for sex or color. As the lad swings the lantern about we spy the rows of heads projecting from under the stacks of rags. In one bed a gray-haired, disheveled head cuddled close to the yellow locks of a slumbering ...

— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler

... last she shrugged her shoulders and laughed. "Set a thief to catch a thief," she said. "I shall make a dragon of a chaperon, I warn you. Yes, I'll come, just for this one night, but you'll have to pay the ...

— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit

... them, a fox-faced trap thief named Earl Leverett, slunk hastily by as though expecting another ...

— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers

More quotes...