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thief.

One who carries out a theft.

5 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈθiːf/[ˈθɪi̯f]
  1. One who carries out a theft.

  2. One who steals another person's property, especially by stealth and without using force or violence.

  3. A waster in the snuff of a candle.

    obsolete
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Germanic *þeubaz Proto-West Germanic *þeub Old English þēof Middle English thef English thief From Middle English thef, theef, þef, from Old English þēof, from Proto-West Germanic *þeub, from Proto-Germanic *þeubaz. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Tjoof (“thief”), West Frisian tsjeaf (“thief”), Dutch dief (“thief”), Low German Deef, Deev (“thief”), German Dieb (“thief”), Danish tyv (“thief”), Swedish tjuv (“thief”), Icelandic þjófur (“thief”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.