PURLOIN

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does purloin mean? 

• PURLOIN (verb)
  The verb PURLOIN has 1 sense:

1. make off with belongings of others

  Familiarity information: PURLOIN used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PURLOIN (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they purloin    ... he / she / it purloins   
Past simple: purloined   
Past participle: purloined   
-ing form: purloining   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Make off with belongings of others

Classified under:

Verbs of buying, selling, owning

Synonyms:

abstract; cabbage; filch; hook; lift; nobble; pilfer; pinch; purloin; snarf; sneak; swipe

Hypernyms (to "purloin" is one way to...):

rip; rip off; steal (take without the owner's consent)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s something from somebody

Sentence example:

They purloin the goods

 Context examples 

I had first, however, provided for my sustenance for that day by a loaf of coarse bread, which I purloined, and a cup with which I could drink more conveniently than from my hand of the pure water which flowed by my retreat.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

I must be served at the fireside, she said; and she placed before me a little round stand with my cup and a plate of toast, absolutely as she used to accommodate me with some privately purloined dainty on a nursery chair: and I smiled and obeyed her as in bygone days.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)