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Theft   /θɛft/   Listen
Theft

noun
1.
The act of taking something from someone unlawfully.  Synonyms: larceny, stealing, thievery, thieving.



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"Theft" Quotes from Famous Books



... point so very closely, and went with so much minuteness into every little incident, that it set the unfortunate manager perspiring, and, indeed, after a while, made him begin to wonder whether he himself were a party to the theft which he had suffered, or a party to assisting the fugitives. The important official, if he did not actually accuse the manager of having aided the prisoners supposed to have purloined the articles of clothing, inferred it certainly, glared at the unhappy man, browbeat him in regular Germanic manner, ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton

... of hope, of Heaven bereft; It is the destiny of man To cower beneath his Maker's ban, And hide from his own theft! ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore

... "There would be no theft. Your sister flings me to you as a dog drops the bone he has picked dry. She had me when I was young, and a soldier—with some reflected glory about me from the hero I followed—and rich and happy. She leaves me old and haggard, without ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... instances related of personal indignity and violence. They returned with their spoils to camp, after a week devoted by them in the Northern Neck, among our unhappy people, to the highly civilized, brave, and chivalrous exploits of theft, robbery, and almost every species of felony committed upon a defenseless, unarmed, and helpless population—chiefly consisting of women and children! It was an easy achievement—a proud conquest—the more glorious to the noble and heroic Yankee, because stained with crime and won without danger ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... are by their serious example an authority to support these principles, how abominably absurd is the idea of being hereafter governed by a set of men who have been guilty of forgery, perjury, treachery, theft and every species of villany which the lowest wretches on earth could practise or invent. What greater public curse can befall any country than to be under such authority, and what greater blessing than to be delivered therefrom. ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... day after our removal from the Darling. The men who had been out chaining left the flags standing after their work, and came to the camp. When Mr. Poole went out the next morning he found that one of them had been taken away. The natives, when charged with the theft, stoutly denied it, and said that it had been stolen by one of the Darling tribe in returning to the river. I therefore directed him, as he generally superintended the issue of presents and provisions to the natives, to stop ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt

... thief. He lay many cold hours under a hay-stack, and at length an old woman, like a witch in a play, approached, and began to pull up the hedge; he waited till she had tied up her bottle of sticks, and was carrying them off, that he might convict her of the theft, and then springing from his concealment, he seized his prey with violent threats. After some altercation, in which her load was left upon the ground, she kneeled upon her bottle of sticks, and raising her arms to heaven beneath the bright moon then at the ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... in each case, laying the article on a table, then having my attention called away by some rather unusual sound in a far corner of the room, and then, on returning to the table, finding the article had vanished. There was no one else in the house, so that ordinary theft was out of the question. Yet where did these articles go, and of what use would they be to a poltergeist? On one occasion, only, I caught a glimpse of the miscreant. It was about eight o'clock on a warm evening in June, and I was sitting reading in my study. The room ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell

... observed, "Nihil humani alienum a me puto," and my time has not been actually squandered in the theft of Procrastination, but rather employed in the proper study of Mankind, and acquiring a more complete knowingness ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey

... master, not content with employing me in his own service, hired me out to other Arabs for a morsel of milk. I would certainly have sunk under this fatigue, if, from time to time, I had not found opportunity to steal some handfuls of barley. It was by this theft (which I am satisfied was a lawful one) that I ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard

... general administration of the law great latitude is allowed, and injustice is rarely inflicted by a too literal interpretation of the Code. Stealing is of course a crime, yet no Chinese magistrate would dream of punishing a hungry man for simple theft of food, even if such a case were ever brought into court. Cake-sellers keep a sharp eye on their wares; farmers and market-gardeners form associates for mutual protection, and woe to the thief who gets caught—his punishment is short and sharp. Litigation is not encouraged, even by such ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles

... 'they are the knife and belt of Malcolm the thrall. And they asked many men the same question, and they all knew them likewise. Then they went toward Mord the son of Valgard and took counsel with him, how to charge Gunnar's thrall with the theft and the burning; for they feared Gunnar, the mighty man of war. At last, for three silver marks Mord agreed to give them his help, and bade them follow ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various

... people, whatever their color, evidently were bent upon the destruction of Simon. A great pother, this, over the theft of a few horses, taken as the spoil of war! But it was not the horses alone that counted. There was the escape of Big Turtle, and the defeat at Boonesborough, and the shooting by Simon of the two Indians on the pony, and to cap the climax, there was his nerve in taking horses from the town ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin

... council which rules the pueblo, the crier publishing its decisions. Laws are traditional and unwritten. Hough[5] says infractions are so few that it would be hard to say what the penalties are, probably ridicule and ostracism. Theft is almost unheard of, and the taking of life by force ...
— The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi • Hattie Greene Lockett

... this one Ile teare them all from him, Doe thou but say their colour pleaseth me: Hold here my little loue these linked gems, My Iuno ware vpon her marriage day, Put thou about thy necke my owne sweet heart, And tricke thy armes and shoulders with my theft. ...
— The Tragedy of Dido Queene of Carthage • Christopher Marlowe

... Rose," returned Paul, and his voice was so full of pathos that Mascarin could hardly repress a smile. "But this is not all," continued the unhappy boy, making a vain effort to restrain his tears; "I am accused of theft." ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau

... purpose. The vulture is a filthy, unclean wretch—the bird of Mars—preying upon the eyes, the hearts, the entrails of the victims of that scoundrel-mountebank, Glory; whilst the magpie is a petty-larceny vagabond, existing upon social theft. To use a vulgar phrase—and considering the magistrates we are compelled to keep company with, 'tis wonderful that we talk so purely as we do—'twould have let the cat too much out of the bag to have put the birds where we stand. Whereas, there is a fine hypocrisy about us. Consider—am ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... superficiality of naive thinking. The press, with its infinite variety of content and expression, represents what is most transient, particular, and accidental in human opinion. Beyond the direct incitation to theft, murder, revolt, etc., lies the art of cultivating the expression which in itself seems general and indefinite enough, but which, in a measure, conceals a perfectly definite meaning. Such expressions are partly responsible for consequences of which, since they are ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... increased his despair, for he knew his neighbor to be one of the laughter-loving kind, who would not go to the length of reproof, though he lost a thousand ducks. After sundry futile attempts to swindle his neighbor out of the needed admonition, our friend was compelled to divulge, not only the theft, but also the means of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... library is less in expenditure for books and for service. The library mentioned affords direct evidence that loss of books by theft is very largely controlled by such simple means provided the means are consciously and consistently related to the larger end of regarding the property rights of others. It is interesting to note that three-fourths of its membership has been ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine

... the end of the little play was murder; that its motive was a sacrilegious robbery—the theft of a diamond cross from the body of a woman lying dead in a church; that the man was a drink-besotted ruffian; that the woman was his illicit partner; that the atmosphere was assuredly brutal. Material eyes saw all this. Material senses reasoned that, given all these qualities, such a ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various

... days ago, had an editorial article about a reported theft of a box containing four large boa-constrictors. Might not a search in the editorial boots disclose the whereabouts of ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 25, September 17, 1870 • Various

... stolen by a neighbouring gentleman, a man of stratagem and resolution, for he poisoned three mastiffs to come at her, and knocked down two deer-stealers in carrying her off. Misfortunes happen in all families. The theft of this romp and so much money, was no great matter to our estate. But the next heir that possessed it was this soft gentleman, whom you see there. Observe the small buttons, the little boots, the laces, the slashes about his clothes, and above all the posture he is drawn in (which, to ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock

... known this he could not have served his own purpose better. Possibly he did know, and possibly that was the inducement which prompted his action. Truly was the money-lender paying dearly for past misdeeds. With the theft of his cattle and the burning of his ranch his loss was terrible, and, in his moment of anguish, he dared not attempt to calculate the extent of ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum

... ours will live on eternally. It is the soul that sins. When in our intentions we purpose to sin, we are guilty of sin before God. He that searches the heart, who looks not as man looks, who sees the secret motive, he knows when the will consents to do evil. Not a theft was ever committed, except that there was a will to steal; not an act of dishonesty, except that there was a will to deceive; not a lie was ever uttered, except there was a will to lie. It is our souls that must be saved. 'Receiving the end of your ...
— Around Old Bethany • Robert Lee Berry

... was being pulled very gently from below. It was a large cynocephalus, one of those which dwelt at liberty within the enclosure of the goddess. It clung to the mantle as though it had been conscious of the theft. They did not dare to strike it, however, fearing that it might redouble its cries; suddenly its anger subsided, and it trotted close beside them swinging its body with its long hanging arms. Then at the barrier it leaped at a bound ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert

... grand spoliations. Is this saying that they are not composed of officers and men as sensitive of their honor, even more so, perhaps, than men in ordinary industrial pursuits—men who would blush at the very thought of theft, and who would face a thousand deaths rather than stoop to ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat

... novel is of a young woman's revenge directed against her employer who allowed her to be sent to prison for three years on a charge of theft, of ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock

... diligently hushed up in that day; and those most familiar with the ancient records of the State averred, that upon the pages of the missing volume was spread matter amply sufficient to account for its theft and destruction by the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various

... coarse, loud, and vulgar; then, arriving at that stage when her beauty no longer could be a source of revenue, drifting into vile dens, consorting with the lowest and most brutal blackguards, finding herself dragged often before police-magistrates, first for drunkenness and then for theft, serving short terms in prison with others as low; finally, one night brought shrieking with delirium tremens to the police-station, bundled out to the hospital, strapped firmly to an iron bed, and then dying with foul oaths on her lips—such a life would be infinitely ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow

... the theft had surprised Squire Inchly, but the details created consternation in his mind. The tracks of the wagon led to the Carew place! Squire Inchly was prompt with ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris

... sustaining the Social Security Act of 1935 and supplementary state legislation. It is the conception which underlies congressional legislation of recent years making certain crimes against the States, like theft, racketeering, kidnapping, crimes also against the National Government whenever the offender extends his activities beyond state boundary lines. The usually cited constitutional justification for such legislation is that which was ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... theft, for Isaac had simply made up his mind to steal the tulip; and as it grew in the most profound secrecy, and as, moreover, his word, being that of a renowned tulip-grower, would any day be taken ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... as to bring the profoundest possible trouble to all the blameless souls animating that ship. He stole eleven golden sovereigns, and a gold pocket chronometer and chain. I am really in doubt whether the crime should not be entered under the category of sacrilege rather than theft. Those things belonged to the captain! There was certainly something in the nature of the violation of a sanctuary, and of a particularly impudent kind, too, because he got his plunder out of the captain's state-room while the captain was asleep ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad

... the one theft inspired the other. I was sent off on foot to look for Van Sneck, only to find that he had suddenly left the city. He had got into trouble with the police, and had fled to avoid being sent to gaol. And from that day to this nothing has been ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White

... am your pretext. I can well believe, messire, that you love your pretext for theft ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell

... of where he was going; to me nineteen was no more than eighteen or twenty; my only desire was to overtake him. I had no clear idea of what I meant to do when I caught him, but I had some hazy notion of intimidating him into giving up his secret by the threat of an accusation of theft. In fact, he had stolen my bag. After him I went; and he knew that I was after him. I saw him turn his face over his shoulder, and then bustle on faster. Neither of us, pursued or pursuer, dared quite to run; as it was, our eager strides and ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope

... have seen others begin like you, and come to a bad end. If you begin by running away from home, by getting into brawls with the other boys, by losing soldi, then, gradually, from stone fights you will come to knives, from gambling to other vices, and from other vices to—theft." ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis

... theft," said the boy, with a queer look on his face, "and am here to throw myself on ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton

... boldest thoughts in awe; And free access unto that sweet lip lies, From which I long the rosy breath to draw. Methinks no wrong it were, if I should steal From those two melting rubies one poor kiss; None sees the theft that would the thief reveal, Nor rob I her of aught that she can miss; Nay, should I twenty kisses take away, There would be little sign I had done so; Why then should I this robbery delay? O, she may wake, and therewith angry grow! Well if she ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... questioned by the hostler, he acknowledged his theft, and said that he had intended to come in the night and take away the robe, which he knew was valuable, by removing ...
— Minnie's Pet Dog • Madeline Leslie

... undivided opinion that Isom had caught Joe robbing him, and that Joe had shot him in the fear of punishment for the theft. Perhaps it is because chivalry is such a rare quality among the business activities of this life, that none of them believed he was shielding Isom's wife, and that he was innocent of any wrong himself. They did not approve the attempt ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... and often make predatory excursions to the Mandan villages on the banks of the Missouri, to steal them. They sometimes visit the Red River for this purpose, and have swept off, at times, nearly the whole of our horses from the settlement. Such indeed is their propensity for this species of theft, that they have fired upon, and killed the Company's servants, close to the forts for these useful animals. They run the buffaloe with them in the summer, and fasten them to sledges which they drag over the snow when they travel in ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West

... formed from their investigations in foreign matters, but they are so egoistical and so literal, so fond of making reports, so fond of seeing things only from their own point of view, that, while they may be successful in obtaining possession by spying, purchase, or theft, of the plans, say, of a new battleship, they are not able to form an accurate estimate of the character and intentions of the people among whom they may ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin

... and it condemns and punishes offences which neither that law punishes nor public opinion condemns. In the Masonic law, to cheat and overreach in trade, at the bar, in politics, are deemed no more venial than theft; nor a deliberate lie than perjury; nor slander than ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... dairyman, and he used constantly to be stealing butter and curdled milk from the dairyman's wife. She did not know, for a long time, what became of her butter and curdled milk; but at last she found out that Vrishnoo was the thief. To punish him for his theft, she tied him to a ...
— Dr. Scudder's Tales for Little Readers, About the Heathen. • Dr. John Scudder

... his disposal to protect them from Indian enemies, but was actually in secret league with the savages themselves to aid him in his mulcts and murders! Whatever his eye coveted he was sure to obtain, by fair means or foul— by open pillage or secret theft—not unfrequently accompanied by assassination. And as with the despot himself, so with his subordinates—each in his own town or district wielding irresponsible power; all leading lives in imitation of the provincial chieftain, as he of him—the great prototype and patron of all—who held dictatorial ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... could; but if they were caught in the fact, they were severely punished for their want of dexterity. Plutarch tells us of a boy, who, having stolen a fox, and hid it under his garment, chose rather to let it tear out his very bowels than be detected in the theft. ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith

... high-sounding name, and well-to-do relations, I'd soon bring them to terms if they dared to cast me off. I'd turn milk or muffin man, and serve the street they lived in. I'd sweep the crossing in front of their windows, or I'd commit a small theft, and call on my high connections for a character—but being who and what I am, I might do any or all o these, ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... The theft was too successfully accomplished. The wretch on getting up to the rum-cask, was seen to sit down silently by its side; and, after a few moments passed in this position he again rose erect, and moved back towards the mast. Dark as was the night, Le Gros could perceive something glittering ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid

... teeth a squall Drove the sail bellying back. The men withal Worked with set teeth, kicking against the stream. But back, still back, striving as in a dream, She drifted. Then the damsel rose and prayed: "O Child of Leto, save thy chosen maid From this dark land to Hellas, and forgive My theft this day, and let these brave men live. Dost thou not love thy brother, Holy One? What marvel if I also ...
— The Iphigenia in Tauris • Euripides

... their figs before they are ripe, lest they should be stolen. At other times they display great impatience of the seasons, and gather the fruit before ripe. Those who steal provisions are poor famished devils, having nothing to eat. There is no poor-law here. It is simply a question of theft or starvation to death. This is the alternative of Arab life in ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... industrial, and domestic arrangements, he must go farther, and agitate for equality of property. But since property, if recognized at all, will be unequally acquired and distributed, he must go farther still, and agitate for the total abolition of property, as an injustice, a grievous wrong, a theft, with M. Proudhon, or the Englishman Godwin. It is unjust that one should have what another wants, or even more than another. What right have you to ride in your coach or astride your spirited barb while I am forced to trudge ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson

... the former are called simple, the latter mixed, modes. Under the former class belong, for example, a dozen or a score, the idea of which is composed of simple units; under the latter, running, fighting, obstinacy, printing, theft, parricide. The formation of mixed modes is greatly influenced by national customs. Very complicated transactions (sacrilege, triumph, ostracism), if often considered and discussed, receive for the sake of brevity comprehensive names, which cannot be rendered by a single expression in the language ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg

... yourself some other way, if you don't want to come a cropper and leave the Service. I hope I am no Pharisee, but I've been reared to believe that living in debt is an aristocratic, and rather mean form of theft. My notion of you doesn't square with that; and I know a good man when I see one. You'll never mend matters, I assure you, by playing the fool over horses and cards. How ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver

... after the date. Then he wrote "one o'clock and nineteen minutes" on the paper which Long Ben handed him. The office was soon crowded with people discussing the result of the race, and a part of them were even now in favor of seizing one or the other of the runners for a theft, which some said had been committed on the packet, and others declared was committed on the wharf-boat. Francis Gray came in, and ...
— The Hoosier School-boy • Edward Eggleston

... Russia and England were systematically spying upon the military institutions of Germany. In the eight years from 1906 to 1913; 113 persons were found guilty of attempted or accomplished espionage of a grave nature. The methods employed by these spies included theft, attacks upon military posts and the employment of German officers' uniforms as disguises. The court proceedings threw a clear light upon the organization and operations of espionage in Germany. This espionage was directed from central points in foreign countries, often ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various

... "Theft and blood-guiltiness are not pleasing in their sight; yet the favoring powers of the spiritual and material world will confirm to you your stolen goods, and their noblest voices applaud the lifting of Your spear, and rehearse the sculpture ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle

... had been awakened. She also could paint, and after twenty trials she at length sketched an outline of the figure of a man that answered to Anna's description, and satisfied her own eye. Without being conscious of the theft, she had copied from a print of the Apollo, and clothed it in the uniform which Bonaparte is said to have worn. A small scar was traced on the cheek in such a manner that although it might be fancied as the ravages of a bullet, it admirably answered all the purposes ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper

... superintendent sent down for his money, and it was loaded into the wagon, the two soldiers immediately deserted, which, of course, excited the suspicions of the officers. A courier was at once dispatched to the agency to see if the money was all right, and the theft was soon discovered. The superintendent, who was then Major Cullen, had handbills struck off, giving the description of the deserters, and offering $600 for their capture and the return of the money. Couriers were dispatched in all directions to effect their arrest, and one ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau

... had the wrong stuff to deal with, and their eyes dilated and rings of white appeared round the irises in theft utter astonishment at seeing the two white men calmly awaiting their onslaught, Briscoe with the stump of a cigar in ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn

... though he told Captain Berry that he would give him, in return, a pair of French pistols, to protect him on his journey home, this mean French officer never performed his promise. To such a pitch, indeed, did these miscreants carry their cruelty and theft, that they purloined the English surgeon's instruments, while he was performing operations on the wounded; and nearly rendered mortal the wound of Captain Thompson, by forcibly obstructing his attendance. In short, the miseries suffered by this unfortunate crew, ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison

... at noon-day." When we read of thousands of miserable wretches, in all the cities and towns of a great nation, huddled together like so many swine in a pen; in rags, squalor, and want; without work, bread, or hope; dragging out from day to day, by begging, or the petty artifices of theft, an existence which is worthless and a burden; and when, at the same time, we see a system of laws, that has carefully drawn a band of iron around every mode of human exertion; which with lynx-eyed and omniscient vigilance, has dragged ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various

... the west. In his peasant dress he now felt safer to approach a farmhouse and inquire his way to Tann, for he had come a sufficient distance from the spot where he had stolen his new clothes to hope that they would not be recognized or that the news of their theft had not ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... enlarged upon; and with respect to the success that has attended their labours, it is sufficient to say that all heathen and barbarous practices have been abolished, Christianity is firmly established, life and property are as secure as in England—nay, more so, as theft is almost unknown—the morals of the people have been greatly improved, a general system of education prevails, and the Bible is admirably translated and in the hands of every member of the community. The difficulties which the missionaries in Samoa ...
— Fruits of Toil in the London Missionary Society • Various

... quarrels than the eternal triviality of the immediate cause? The insulting removal of a memorial emblem from an Italian city; the shifting of a reading-desk from one position to another in a French church; the playful theft of a lock of hair by an amorous young English nobleman—these were enough, in point of fact, to set whole communities by the ears, and these are the events celebrated in The Rape of the Bucket, ...
— Romance - Two Lectures • Walter Raleigh

... persecuted you, may God forgive me! If I have wronged you by suspicion and accusation of a crime which you did not commit, then my atonement shall be your triumphant vindication. I would give a good deal to know that your hands are as pure as they look, and innocent of theft and murder. Tell me—tell me the truth. I will save you, I will give you back all that you have lost, and tenfold more. For God's sake, for your own sake, and for mine, I entreat you to tell me the truth. Did you go back to 'Elm Bluff' that night, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... his master was put in prison till further evidence could be procured, for no one but those in the secret doubted that he was the instigator of the theft. ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob

... these neologisms reflects a strong revulsion against the theft and vandalism perpetrated by cracking rings. While it is expected that any real hacker will have done some playful cracking and knows many of the basic techniques, anyone past {larval stage} is expected to have outgrown the desire to do so except ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... are the Traitors, Who lye and swear in jest, To cheat unguarded Creatures Of Virtue, Fame, and Rest! Whoever steals a Shilling, Through Shame the Guilt conceals: In Love the perjur'd Villain With Boasts the Theft reveals. ...
— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay

... young lady is missed, if property is also missed, they will naturally suppose that both she and the valuables have been carried off by some marauder; for they could never believe her to be guilty of theft; and their affection for her would prompt them to make every effort for her recovery. If, on the contrary, no property disappears with her, they may possibly think that she has voluntarily eloped, and will be apt to trouble themselves very ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson

... Isthmus of Panama we have news to the 1st of June. A serious riot had occurred there between the emigrants and the natives in which two or three were killed on each side. It grew out of the arrest of a negro boy on charge of theft, and a supposition on the part of the natives that the Americans intended to hang him. Such an incident, however, indicates an unpleasant state of feeling between the parties. Quiet, however, had ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various

... pottery, and in other arts, which, in later life, he was found thoroughly to understand. His moral faculties appeared strong, so that white witnesses admitted that he had never been known to swear an oath, to drink a drop of spirits, or to commit a theft. And, in general, so marked were his early peculiarities that people said "he had too much sense to be raised; and, if he was, he would never be of any use as a slave." This impression of personal destiny ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... everything is the opposite of what it is here: the spoilt shall be perfect, the new and unspoilt shall be old and damaged, and so on. It is probable that the real or original motive for this practice is the desire to avoid placing temptations to theft in the ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... were curtly commanded to empty the straw from our sacks. We did so though our spirits dropped to zero at this summary deprivation of our beds. We were told to keep the empty sacks and to secure them against loss or theft, which injunction we did not fail to take ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney

... personal of his possessions—these, certainly (for Amidon knew the rule of evidence which brands as a thief the possessor of stolen goods); and who could tell of what else? Letters, bags, purses, money—these any vulgar criminal might have, and bear no deeper guilt than that of theft; but, the clothes! Mr. Amidon shuddered as his logic carried him on from deduction to reduction—to murder, and the ghastly putting away of murder's fruit. Imagination threw its limelight over the horrid ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick

... the highly concentrated essence of all conceivable wickedness. Theft, robbery, pollution, unbridled passion, incest, cruelty, cold-blooded murder, blasphemy, and defiance of the laws of God. It teaches children to disregard parental authority. It tears down the marriage altar, and tramples its sacred ashes under its feet. It creates and nourishes polygamy. ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various

... with which we do not read that the patriarchs themselves were possessed: although we certainly do read that a light heel was of little service to Jacob. Well, Phelim carries a light heel, and the second female of his choice on this list carries a 'light hand;' (* Intimating theft) it is, therefore, but natural to suppose that, if ever they are driven to extremities, they will make light of many things which other people would consider as of weighty moment. Whether Phelim and she may long remain stationary ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton

... fight and trick for the ownership of the West. From their forts, built to curb the English settlers, the French set the savages on to harass the frontier of our colonies, which their war parties wasted with theft and fire and murder. Our colonies made a poor defense, because they were suspicious of one another. New England was suspicious of New York, New York of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania of Virginia, and the mother country was suspicious of them all. She was willing ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells

... they inflict in this kingdom are these: for a thief, whatever theft he commits, howsoever little it be, they forthwith cut off a foot and a hand, and if his theft be a great one he is hanged with a hook under his chin. If a man outrages a respectable woman or a virgin he has the same punishment, and if he does any other such violence his punishment ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell

... and at my window, leaving bed, By night I mused, of easeful sleep bereft, On those brave boys (Ah War! thy theft); Some marching feet Found pause at last by cliffs Potomac cleft; Wakeful I mused, while in the street Far footfalls died away till ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville

... theft of stores on No. 50 noggur. I caught and punished the captain in the act of selling our ammunition to the slave traders' people ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... There is no such article as a ribbon known among them. All their clothes are of one pattern. I noticed that there were no pockets in any of their garments, and learned that a pocket would be considered prima facie evidence of theft, as no honest person would have use for such a secret receptacle.) Before the revolution which established the great law of absolute and lifelong equality, the inhabitants used to feed at their own private tables. Since the regeneration of society all meals are taken in common. The last relic of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... week later, and lasted two months. Hezekiah was indicted on five charges—arson, for having burned the steel cage of the elevator; misdemeanour, for shooting the footman; the theft of the money, petty larceny; the killing of the philanthropist, infanticide; and the shooting at the police without hitting them, ...
— Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock

... a shiftless ghost." The Devil he looked at the mangled Soul that prayed to feel the flame, And he thought of Holy Charity, but he thought of his own good name:— "Now ye could haste my coal to waste, and sit ye down to fry: Did ye think of that theft for yourself?" said he; and Tomlinson said, "Ay!" The Devil he blew an outward breath, for his heart was free from care:— "Ye have scarce the soul of a louse," he said, "but the roots of sin are there, And for that sin should ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... againste a certaine Thefe, Extorcio- ner, Murderer, or Traitor, is for the matter conteined in it, metelie and aptlie compiled, against all soche as are giltie of theft, murder, treason, or ...
— A booke called the Foundacion of Rhetorike • Richard Rainolde

... living on free beef, as he had once on the free buffalo of the plains. The immense domain of the West was filled with property held under no better or more obvious mark than the imprint of a hot iron on the hide. There were no fences. The owner might be a thousand miles away. The temptation to theft was continual and urgent. It seemed easy and natural to take a living from these great herds which no one seemed to own or to care for. The "rustler" of the range made his appearance, bold, hardy, unprincipled; ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough

... the blazing wall of gold. The fear went out of my mind, so much absorbed was I in this sight. I gazed, seeing farther and farther every moment into crevices and seams of the glowing metal, always with more and more slaves at work, and the entire pantomime of labor and theft, and search and punishment, going on and on,—the baked faces dark against the golden glare, the hot eyes taking a yellow reflection, the monotonous clamor of pick and shovel, and cries and curses, and ...
— The Little Pilgrim: Further Experiences. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant

... that he will always hate the wicked, and help the righteous, and that he will show fidelity to all men and especially to those in authority, that he will be a lover of truth and denounce those who tell lies, and that he will keep his hands clean from theft, and his soul from unlawful gain. Moreover he swears to communicate their doctrines to no one otherwise than he received them himself, and that he will abstain from robbery, and that he will faithfully preserve the books of their ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent

... property of another without observing the decent and customary reticences of theft. To effect a change of ownership with the candid concomitance of a brass band. To wrest the wealth of A from B and leave ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce

... otherwise after the great gate was closed, involved rustication for two months for the first offence, six months for the second offence, and expulsion for a third. At the College de Verdale, at Toulouse, expulsion was the penalty for a list of crimes which includes theft, entering the college by stealth, breaking into the cellar, bringing in a meretrix, witch-craft, alchemy, invoking demons or sacrificing to them, forgery, and contracting "carnale vel ...
— Life in the Medieval University • Robert S. Rait

... so secret Thrive terror and theft set free; Treason and shame shall come to pass While one weed flowers in a morass; And like the stillness of stiff ...
— The Ballad of the White Horse • G.K. Chesterton

... and took him over the palace, but when his back was turned the friend stole one orange from the basket. Subsequently the sentinel counted the oranges and found one short; on this he ran after his friend and taxed him with the theft, which being admitted, the Mina said that he had been made to betray his trust and had become dishonoured, and drawing his sword cut off his friend's head. The ancient treasure of Jaipur or Amber was, according to tradition, kept in a secret cave ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... take up their cause and run risk to advance it. That he had advanced it was known to all the world; that he had paid the price of his mutiny by saving the king's navy with a stolen ship had brought him pardon for his theft of a ship and mutiny; and that he had won wealth was but another proof of the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... at the door of the prison of Beaucaire. He was admitted, looked at the prisoners, and picked out as the murderer a little hunchback (had the children described a hunchback?) who had just been brought in for a small theft. The hunchback was taken to Lyons, and he was recognised, on the way, by the people at all the stages where he had stopped. At Lyons he was examined in the usual manner, and confessed that he had been an accomplice in the crime, and had guarded ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang

... a ready listener now, and was unusually quick to grasp a situation, although he could not learn the ethics of the white man. The Professor had him present at one of the trials for theft of a petty nature, which occurred a few days ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Conquest of the Savages • Roger Thompson Finlay

... ancestors. The honors of sacrifice were reserved for the supreme deity; they acknowledged, in rude hymns, their obligations to the air, the fire, the water, and the earth; and their priests derived some profit from the art of divination. Their unwritten laws were rigorous and impartial: theft was punished with a tenfold restitution; adultery, treason, and murder, with death; and no chastisement could be inflicted too severe for the rare and inexpiable guilt of cowardice. As the subject nations marched under the standard of the Turks, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... of a half-witted woman, who followed the soldiers to war, mounted on an ass. One night he fell from the pannier in which she carried him, and was left abandoned by the roadside. From that time forward he had lived solely by theft. The feeblest, Robin, could hardly recall his parents, peasants in the highlands, who being too poor or too avaricious to support him had deserted him in the forest. The third, Sulpice, knew nothing of his birth, but a priest had taught him his alphabet. ...
— The Miracle Of The Great St. Nicolas - 1920 • Anatole France

... was excessiuely desirous to staie and looke vppon it, but my leaders and guides would not suffer mee, and yet by the theft of my eye in the Zopher, ouer the gate I noted this inscription, HO TE:S ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna

... the hundred of North Erpingham, containing thirty- two parishes, the catalogue of crime is so ghastly as positively to stagger one. Without taking any account of what in those days must have been looked upon as quite minor offences—such as simple theft, sheep-stealing, fraud, extortion, or harbouring felons—there were eleven men and five women put upon their trial for burglary, eight men and four women were murdered; there were five fatal fights, three men and ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp

... of the Board of Managers had, singly and by roundabout routes, approached the scene of the theft and had studied it. ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler

... with a human nicety, the distinction between formal and essential truth. Of his punning perversions, his legitimate dexterity with symbols, he is even vain; but when he has told and been detected in a lie, there is not a hair upon his body but confesses guilt. To a dog of gentlemanly feeling theft and falsehood are disgraceful vices. The canine, like the human, gentleman demands in his misdemeanours Montaigne's "je ne sais quoi de genereux."[6] He is never more than half ashamed of having barked or bitten; and for those faults ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson

... that the law would distinguish between stealing the art of glass-making, which was merely a civil offence, though a grave one, and stealing a mantle of silk which he estimated to be worth at least two or three pieces of gold. That was theft, and it was criminal, and it was one of many crimes which Zorzi had undoubtedly committed. The hangman would twist the rest out of him with the rack and the iron boot, thought Giovanni gleefully. The Governor should see the mantle with ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford

... the abbot's ring, drinking cup, horse and hound. The abbot was a very great noble, held his house "in chief" and sat in Parliament. At the Suppression Henry VIII. granted the place to Sir Thomas Cheynay. Now mark the almost inevitable end. The Cheynays were living on Church property obtained by theft; at the least they were receivers of stolen goods. Do you think they could endure? They presently sold to a certain Thomas Arden, sometime Mayor of Faversham. Upon Sunday, 15 February 1551, this man was foully murdered ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton

... dared to preserve one of the roses which you threw into the garden. It was a mad theft, I know it, but I was under the power of enchantment; I could not resist, and would at that moment have paid for the little blossom with my heart's blood. Oh, if your royal highness could have seen, when I entered my room and closed the door, with what rapture I regarded my treasure, ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach



Words linked to "Theft" :   larceny, misapplication, peculation, defalcation, petty larceny, robbery, pilferage, felony, rustling, embezzlement, shoplifting, shrinkage, petty, biopiracy, misappropriation, skimming, grand theft, grand larceny, breach of trust with fraudulent intent, petit larceny



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