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Added 9 October 2026

steal

/stiːl/ noun

In Latin: clepō, fūror Wiktionary

noun Definition from WordNet 3.1, Princeton University. Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about steal at Wordnik → Where our words come from →

An advantageous purchase.
she got a bargain at the auction
A stolen base; an instance in which a base runner advances safely during the delivery of a pitch (without the help of a hit or walk or passed ball or wild pitch).

verb

Take without the owner's consent.
Someone stole my wallet on the train
Move stealthily.
The ship slipped away in the darkness
Steal a base.

Origin

Inherited from Middle English stelen, from Old English stelan, from Proto-West Germanic *stelan, from Proto-Germanic *stelaną. Cognate with Bavarian stöhn (“to steal”), Dutch stelen (“to steal”), German and Low German stehlen (“to steal”), Luxembourgish stielen (“to steal”), Danish stjæle (“to steal”), Faroese stjala (“to steal”), Icelandic stela (“to steal”), Norwegian Bokmål stjele (“to steal”), Norwegian Nynorsk stela, stele (“to steal”), Swedish stjäla (“to steal”), Gothic 𐍃𐍄𐌹𐌻𐌰𐌽 (stilan, “to steal”). For the meaning development compare with Russian красть (krastʹ, “to steal”) and Russian кра́сться (krástʹsja, “to stalk, to prowl, to slink”).

From Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)

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