thievery

n

1. stealing, pilferage, pilfering, filching, purloinging, theft, thieving, Inf. snitching, Law. larceny, Sl. swiping, Sl. copping; shoplifting, palming, Sl. boosting; purse-snatching.

2. peculation, embezzlement, misappropriation; swindling, defrauding, bilking, fleecing, sharking, Sl. conning, thimblerigging, cardsharping, Sl. hustling; fraud, swindle, confidence game.

3. extortion, usury, blackmail, shakedown, bloodsucking, leeching, rapacity.

4. forgery, counterfeiting; plagiarism, pirating, Inf. copying.

5. robbery, burglary, Inf. hold-up, Sl. stick-up, Inf. mugging, break-in; breaking and entering, safecracking, second-story work.

6. brigandage, piracy, buccaneering, freebooting, banditry, highway robbery, Obs. latrociny, privateering, filibustering, U.S. Inf. (usu. of cattle) rustling.

7. plundering, plunderage, rapine, pillage, depredation, spoliation, despoliation, despoilment, Obs. direption; ravaging, harrying, marauding, sacking, Rare. sackage, laying waste, devastation, desolation; raid, razzia, foray; foraging, looting, ravishment, seizure, grab, rape.

8. commandeering, hijacking, skyjacking, air or sky piracy; (usu. of persons) abduction, kidnapping, Sl. snatch, capture, impressment, conscription, man-stealing, child-stealing; (all of animals) poaching, deer-jacking, petnapping, dognapping.

9. expropriation, appropriation, arrogation, usurpation, accroachment, assumption; dispossession, deprivation, deprival, divestiture, bereavement.

10. thievishness, Psychol. kleptomania; (among animals) cleptobiosis, lestobiosis.