steal

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English [edit]

Etymology [edit]

From Middle English stelen, from Old English stelan, from Proto-Germanic *stelaną (compare West Frisian stelle, Dutch stelen, German stehlen, Danish stjæle, Norwegian stjele), either from Proto-Indo-European *ster- (compare Welsh herw (“theft, raid”), Ancient Greek στερέω (stereō, “to deprive of”))[1] or Proto-Indo-European*stel(H)- (“to stretch”) (compare Albanian pë/mbështjell (“I confuse, mess up, mix, wrap up”) , Old Church Slavonic  (steljǫ, “I spread out (bed, roof)”), Ancient Greek τηλία (tēlía, “playing table”))[2].

Pronunciation [edit]

Verb [edit]

steal (third-person singular simple present steals, present participle stealing, simple past stole, past participle stolen)

  1. (transitive) To illegally, or without the owner's permission, take possession of something by surreptitiously taking or carrying it away.
    The government agents stole my identity.
    Three irreplaceable paintings were stolen from the gallery.
  2. (transitive) To get or effect surreptitiously or artfully.
  3. (copyright law, chiefly informal, transitive) To copy copyright-protected work without permission.
  4. (transitive, colloquial) To acquire at a low price.
    He stole the car for two thousand less than its book value.
  5. (transitive) To draw attention unexpectedly in (an entertainment), especially by being the outstanding performer. Usually used in the phrase steal the show.
  6. (intransitive) To move silently or secretly.
    He stole across the room, trying not to wake her.
    • 1922, Virginia Woolf, Jacob's Room Chapter 1
      "Did he take his bottle well?" Mrs. Flanders whispered, and Rebecca nodded and went to the cot and turned down the quilt, and Mrs. Flanders bent over and looked anxiously at the baby, asleep, but frowning. The window shook, and Rebecca stole like a cat and wedged it.
    • 2011 October 23, Phil McNulty, “Man Utd 1 - 6 Man City”, BBC Sport:
      United's hopes of mounting a serious response suffered a blow within two minutes of the restart when Evans, who had endured a miserable afternoon, lost concentration and allowed Balotelli to steal in behind him. The defender's only reaction was to haul the Italian down, resulting in an inevitable red card.
  7. (transitive, baseball) To advance safely to (another base) during the delivery of a pitch, without the aid of a hit, walk, passed ball, wild pitch, or defensive indifference.
  8. (sports, transitive) To dispossess
    • 2011 February 12, Les Roopanarine, “Birmingham 1 - 0 Stoke”, BBC:
      However, until Gardner stole the ball from Dean Whitehead in the centre circle with the half-hour approaching, setting off on a run which culminated with a testing long-range shot - with debutant Obafemi Martins lurking, Begovic gathered at the second time of asking - Stoke looked the more credible contenders to break the deadlock.

Synonyms [edit]

Antonyms [edit]

Troponyms [edit]

Translations [edit]

to illegally take possession of
to get or effect surreptitiously or artfully
to draw attention
to move silently
baseball: to advance safely during the pitch
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.
Translations to be checked

See also [edit]

Noun [edit]

steal (plural steals)

  1. The act of stealing.
  2. A piece of merchandise available at a very attractive price.
    At this price, this car is a steal.
  3. (basketball, ice hockey) A situation in which a defensive player actively takes possession of the ball or puck from the opponent's team.
  4. (baseball) A stolen base.
  5. (curling) Scoring in an end without the hammer.
  6. (computing) A policy in database systems that a database follows which allows a transaction to be written on nonvolatile storage before its commit occurs

Synonyms [edit]

  • (merchandise available at a very attractive price): bargain

Translations [edit]

merchandise available at a very attractive price
the act of stealing
a stolen base
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.
Translations to be checked

Anagrams [edit]

References [edit]

  1. ^ J.P. Mallory and D.Q. Adams, Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, s.v. "steal" (London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1999), 543.
  2. ^ Vladimir Orel, A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, s.v. "stelanan" (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2003), 374.
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