Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Thieving   /θˈivɪŋ/   Listen
Thieving

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






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Thieving" Quotes from Famous Books



... there was no thieving, and he is entirely satisfied. He thanks you for your friendly zeal. The Oriental was not Dexippus's slave, and Xerxes does not need such boys for spies. I am certain Glaucon would not insult Sparta. So let us part without ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... "Here's your first sight of a wild coon, boys. I wish to goodness it had been a different sight, but I suppose he must pay for his thieving." ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook

... is common enough in England," said Hardy; "but they do less in telling fortunes or in thieving farmyards then formerly was their custom. They appear to do a good business in small wares, as brushes and mats, which they take ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary

... of the men who engaged with you in that cattle-thieving business were hanged for horse-stealing," ...
— Elam Storm, The Wolfer - The Lost Nugget • Harry Castlemon

... the weight as of a great mountain rolled away. She was afraid of the immense sense of relief that now seemed coming upon her. Could she really become free of the horrible Molly of the last months—this noxious, vile, lying, thieving woman? What an awful strain that woman had lived in! She had told Mark that what frightened her was the thought that she would still be herself. She longed now to cut away everything that had belonged to her. Might she not by God's grace, in poverty and hard work, with everything around her ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward

... stands, Sae saintly and sae bonny O, I cannot get ae glimpse of grace, For thieving looks at Nanie O; My Nanie O, my Nanie O; The world's in love with Nanie O; That heart is hardly worth the wear That wadna ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various

... largely made up of colliers and their wives and children. But very soon some of the boys and girls of colliers wanted to go to the theatre oftener than their parents wished, and to this end, it was surmised, carried on a series of petty thefts to enable them to raise the admission fee. In fact, thieving in the town got to such a pitch that the police authorities interfered, and when the licensing sessions were held they opposed the renewal of the theatre license. The proprietress of the theatre, and the company, along with myself, had to appear at the sessions. ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End

... who your Tom is?" roared the physician. "There's my Tom;" and he pointed to a monstrous gray cat that sat on an oak chest watching the boy with green-glaring eyes; "and if he should mistake you for a thieving gopher some fine morning, and eat you up alive, small loss would it be to the world, ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson

... very respectable woman, one Jane Tytler, who is cook to our esteemed fellow townsman, Mr. Samuel Hawkins, whose residence is, as you know, not far from this school. She will tell you that, having for some time been plagued by a thieving cat which was in the habit of getting into her larder and carrying off portions of food, she, finding it one day there in the act of stealing a half chicken, fell upon it with a broomstick and killed it, or as she thought killed it, and I imagine most cooks would have acted ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty

... can crook his forefinger twice, and while he's a-wondering what-all has happened Cock-eye gets his two guns on him, slow and deliberate like, mind you, and throws forty-eights into him till he ain't worth shooting at no more. Murders him like the mud-eating, horse-thieving snake of a Greaser that he is; but being within the law, the kid drawing on him first, he don't stretch hemp ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris

... the Fianna It was a fine boy I was, It was not about thieving was my knowledge, But always putting spells, Playing games and matches with the strength of Gol MacMorna, And you are making me a rogue At the end of ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge

... got his discharge. "The restraining influences of military discipline," says Dr. Knapp, "gradually wore away." He went back to school even, but in vain. He was "never happier in his life" than when he "fingered all this money"— 200 pounds acquired by theft. He worked at his trade of thieving in many parts of Scotland and Ireland. As early as 1818 he was sentenced to death, but escaped, and, being recognised by a policeman, killed him and got clear away. He served one or two sentences and escaped from another. He escaped a third time, with a friend, after hitting the ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas

... inseparable, and constituted, if I may so express myself, a kind of traffic, in which, if I perform my part of the bargain, my master would take care not to be deficient in his; that preliminary settled, I applied myself to thieving with great tranquility, and whenever this interrogatory occurred to my mind, "What will be the consequence?" the reply was ready, "I know the worst, I shall be beat; no matter, I was ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... kind has taken place in Wyoming, Montana, the Dakotas and other reservations further east, but there is always a certain number of malcontents on the reservations who cause trouble. They steal away unnoticed by the authorities, and engage in thieving, and, when the chances are favorable ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis

... two people to live together against their will, or even against the will of only one of them, if that person considered him or herself, as the case might be, ill-treated or neglected. Gunnar no doubt could have separated himself from Hallgerda for her thieving, just as Hallgerda could have parted from Gunnar for giving her that slap in the face; but they lived on, to Gunnar's cost and Hallgerda's infamy. In marriage contracts the rights of brides, like Unna ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous

... descend to the Mob, and 'tis there the same thing; Possession, like the Plague, is Morbus Plebaei; not a Family but he is a Spirit of Strife and Contention among them; not a Man but he has a Part in him; he is a drunken Devil in one, a whoring Devil in another, a thieving Devil in a third, a lying Devil in the fourth, and so on, to a thousand, and ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe

... comfort himself. Yet, deep down in his heart he was afraid of this new contrivance and felt that it boded no good to the neighbourhood. And though he reasoned inconsequently he was right, for with the appearance of the railway engines there also came much thieving. From pots and pans, drying on the fences, to horses in the stables, nothing was safe. The Germans had their bacon stolen from the larder; the gospodarz Marcinezak, who returned rather tipsy from absolution, was attacked by ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various

... child, and is comforted. She kisses its nose and tail with the most affectionate fondness, and soon the lost lamb is seen helping himself lustily, and frolicking with his tail in the height of his contentment. I have known, however, many cunning lambs make a practice of thieving from the more inexperienced ewes, though they have mothers of their own; and I remember one very beautiful and favourite lamb of mine, who, to my great sorrow, lost its mother, but kept itself alive in this ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler

... however, may be overruled by three considerations. The grounds for divorce are disobedience to her husband's parents; not giving birth to a son; dissolute conduct; jealousy— (of her husband's attentions, that is, to the other inmates of his harem); talkativeness; and thieving. The three considerations which may overrule these grounds are— first, if, while she was taken from a home, she has now no home to return to; second, if she have passed with her husband through the three years' mourning for his parents; ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) Unicode Version • James Legge

... other way. Here's Mike the Finn, and Jansen the Swede, and Hansen the Dane, and Giuseppe the dago, and Pat the Irishman the boss of the whole dirty gang. Before God I take shame to myself for being an honest man and American born, and having this thieving gang to tell me how long I can work, and where I can buy, with a swat in the jaw and a knife in my back for daring to say my soul is my own and sticking to it against orders ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason

... a lot of thieving, rascally scoundrels, too lazy to work, and too dishonest to pay their way, even when they have ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners

... without undergoing inspection. Augustine, for example, who, once having turned her back on the inn windows, believed herself entirely cut off from observation, was perilously exposed to our mercy. We knew all the secrets of her thieving habits; we could count, to a second, the time she stole from the Mere, her employer, to squander in smiles and dimples at the corner creamery. There a tall Norman rained admiration upon her through wide blue eyes, as he patted, ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... thieving look?" she demanded, without attending to the manner in which she was so suddenly deserted by all those who had just expressed the strongest sympathy in her loss. "Was he a man that had the air of a ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... being handled by policemen of his awn kind—that is, if the Yuen-nan police shall ever have made strides towards the attainment of home police principles. However, in their place these men have done good work. Thieving in the city is now much less common, and gambling, although still rife under cover—when will the Chinese eradicate that inherent spirit?—is certainly being put down. One of the features of their work ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle

... reconnoitre, and discovered a few warriors driving along a band of at least two hundred horses. The trappers comprehended instantly that the warriors had been to the Mexican settlement in Sonora, on a thieving expedition, and that the horses had changed hands, with only one party to the bargain. The opportunity to instill a lesson on the savage marauders was ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott

... facts are simple, and perhaps, uninteresting; but they serve to exhibit a characteristic of the lower classes of Mexicans. Doubtless, such paltry thieving is the result of a want of animal courage, easily discernible by the close observer of the Mexican race. Of course there are many ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters

... order to give proper effect to the verses; and fatherless urchins, who had to choose between thieving and singing for their livelihood, took the latter course, as likely to be the more profitable, as long as the public taste remained in that direction. The uncouth dance, its accompaniment, might be seen in its full perfection on market nights ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... was not far off, yet I still hoped against hope that Agathemer might, even yet, have caught the thieving murderers and would intervene before it was too late. I did not at all fear the beasts; I knew that no bear, panther, leopard, tiger or lion would hurt me, but I felt certain that, when the beasts left me unharmed, I should be recognized as Festus the Beast-Wizard: and then, as ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... picking olives and oranges, and he easily sends his children out to pick up coal from railroad tracks, or wood from buildings which have been burned down. Unfortunately, this process leads by easy transition to petty thieving. It is easy to go from the coal on the railroad track to the coal and wood which stand before a dealer's shop; from the potatoes which have rolled from a rumbling wagon to the vegetables displayed by the grocer. This is apt to be ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams

... steps, or comes out where he least expects to, unless he knows every court and every alley exactly and separately. According to Dr. Kay, the most demoralised class of all Manchester lived in these ruinous and filthy districts, people whose occupations are thieving and prostitution; and, to all appearance, his assertion is still true at the present moment. When the sanitary police made its expedition hither in 1831, it found the uncleanness as great as in Little ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels

... whose honesty De Rilly had vouched, but he was now absent on a journey to La Tournoire, whither I had sent him with a message to my old steward. I have often wondered at the good fortune which preserved me from being waylaid, by thieving rascals, on my peregrinations, by night, through Paris streets. About this very time several gentlemen, who went well attended, were set upon and robbed almost within sight of the quarters of the provost's watch; and some of these lost their lives as well as ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens

... of time. Then came the hunt for nails and for the indispensable perforated "iron," which cost so much. But worst of all the ills of the miner's life in New Caledonia are the jealousy and audacious thieving of the Indians, "who are nowise particular, in seizing on the dirt ...
— Handbook to the new Gold-fields • R. M. Ballantyne

... Mr. Latimer." The cop came in as he spoke, Moriway following; the rest of the hounds hung about. "There's a thieving bell-boy from the hotel that's somewhere in your grounds. Can I ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson

... in this legislature. I've no doubt you know something about them, and that you would maintain they are justified on account of the indifference of the public, and of other reasons, but I can cite an instance that is simply legalized thieving." For the first time a note of indignation crept into Krebs's voice. "Last night I discovered by a mere accident, in talking to a man who came in on a late train, that a bill introduced yesterday, which is being rushed through the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... his duty—only that for which he was paid. He was the Perucca's agent, and because he made the idlers pay their rent, they threatened him. Because he put up fences, they raised their guns to him. Because he stopped their thieving and their lawlessness, they shoot him. He drove their cattle from the fields because they were Perucca's fields, and he was paid to watch his master's interests. But Perucca they dare not touch, because his clan is large, and would ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman

... o'clock on one of the evenings I have mentioned we were taken by Dickens's favorite Detective W—— into a sort of lock-up house, where persons are brought from the streets who have been engaged in brawls, or detected in the act of thieving, or who have, in short, committed any offence against the laws. Here they are examined for commitment by a sort of presiding officer, who sits all night for that purpose. We looked into some of the cells, and found ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... prejudice existing against them (the negroes) among the respectable portion of the people, for they were indolent, shiftless and dishonest, and unworthy of the sympathy that some mistaken parties extended to them; they would not work when opportunity was presented, but preferred subsisting by thieving from respectable farmers, and begging from those ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... supported him after he came into his property, as I told you, until the day of his death—and that was soon after; for the poor goose thought he was catching a trout one Friday; but, my jewel, it was a mistake he made—and instead of a trout, it was a thieving horse-eel; and instead of the goose killing a trout for the king's supper—by dad, the eel killed the king's goose—and small blame to him; but he didn't ate her, because he darn't ate what Saint Kavin had laid his ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)

... farmer. "No, I reckon not. You hain't had time for that yet. It was only last night I run two thieving rascals off my land. They hed a camp a little ways down the creek, an' fur two whole days they were livin' at my expense, stealing applies, an' eggs, an' chickens, an' whatever else they could lay their hands ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon

... of the country! the curse of the country!' he repeated, excitedly; 'these d——d mean, low, thieving, sneaking, pilfering, poor whites! They teach our negroes to steal, they sell them liquor, they do everything to corrupt and demoralize them. That's how they live, by ——! The slaves are respectable, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... is, from first to last, a record of the most shameless lying and fraud. The Agency seems to have been established there as a sort of Jonathan Wild's shop, for the purpose of carrying on the trade of thieving. What did these storekeepers—who credited the Indians for tobacco and rum, for bread and beef, for clothing, and such other luxuries as they had come to regard as necessaries—care for the winter prospects of the wretched ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... all thought of it. You're just a silly fool of a girl who won't take her father's advice. It is an insult to Ormsby to throw him over for a thieving rascal—" ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley

... purposes; mongoose, squirrels and flying-foxes they eat with avidity as articles of luxury. Spirituous liquors and intoxicating drugs are indulged in to a large extent, and chiefs of clans assume the title of Bhangi or drinkers of hemp (bhang) as a mark of honour.... In lying, thieving and knavery the Beria is not a whit inferior to his brother gipsy of Europe. The Beria woman deals in charms for exorcising the devil and palmistry is her special vocation. She also carries with her a bundle ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... wares were "dog-cheap." These fairs continued for six days, and merchants came to them from Flanders and France, as well as from England. He gives the Waterford people the palm for commerce, declares they are "addicted to thieving," that they distil the best aqua vitae, and spin the choicest rugs in Ireland. A friend of his, who took a fancy to one of these "choice rugs," being "demurrant in London, and the weather, by reason of a hard hoar frost, being somewhat nipping, repaired to Paris Garden, ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... Saturday last, was whipped at the cart's tail, for robbery, one of George the Third's pretty subjects. This fellow, who now goes by the name of Captain Phillips, under his good friend Sir Harry Clinton, learned such a knack of thieving while he commanded a whale-boat along this coast, under his good master, that now, having lost his protection, he and a number more of those lads called Loyalists are swarming amongst us, and have set up business in a small way; and though many ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 5: Some Strange and Curious Punishments • Henry M. Brooks

... (and I meet a good many of them in my lonely walks) I often find myself asking the question, "How did that shambling vagabond come to his present condition? Did his father turn him out of doors? Did his mother drink? Did he learn nothing but lying and swearing and thieving when he was a child? Was his grandfather hanged for some crime, or was his great-grandfather a ruffian killed in a fight?" And I say to myself, "Though I do not know the truth, yet I am sure that man was helped towards his vagabondism, helped to become ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp

... begins to seem a little tame and conventional to me, because the pagan in my nature is so highly developed. I detest civilization except for my own selfish bodily comfort. When I eat and sleep I want the creature comforts. Otherwise I love those thieving Arab servants in Cairo (who would steal the very shoes off your feet if you dropped off for your forty winks) because of their uncivilization and unconventionality. Civilization has not yet spoiled them. I bought rugs in Cairo, and often when I went unexpectedly into my room I found my Arab ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell

... you may chance to meet the mole-catcher of the place—an upholder of right traditions of an old English village. I met him searching disconsolately for a couple of his traps, which he had set too near the pathway and which had been carried off by thieving passers-by, on whom may malisons light. "I've got forty traps about here," he told me with some pride, adding with resignation to a persistent fate that "they" would not let him set a trap near the path. "They" always took it if ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker

... property, the squire had been merciful, pleading with the magistrates for a mitigated penalty. The drunkenness was habitual. In short, they were a bad lot—there was a name attached to the whole family for thieving, poaching, drinking, and even worse. Yet still there were two points that did sink deep into Smith's mind, and made him pause several times that afternoon in his work. The first was that long family ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies

... Snowstorm was awful dejected. He had hated the capitalist right off. 'He wears a gold watch chain and silk underclothes like one of these fly city dames,' says Snowstorm, who was a knowing old scoundrel, 'and he says his syndicate on the reports of these two thieving experts will pay twelve hundred for it and not a cent more. What do you ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... aborigines of the northern coast, with all the tribes and varieties of tribes of the interior of Africa. This may account for their having less pride and stiffness than the Tuaricks of Ghat, who are purer Berbers; as well as for their disposition to thieving and petty larceny, of which I have recently been obliged to give some examples. The pure Berbers, likewise, are much less sensual than their bastard descendants, who seem, indeed, to have no idea of pleasure but ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson

... The large dog pursued him a little way, but "Erie" out-ran him and reached home in safety, As soon as he had deposited the basket in the hands of his mistress, he turned and ran down street again as fast as he could, in search of the thieving dog, whose dishonesty he seemed to think he must punish. After searching a long time he found him playing with a number of other dogs, and I never saw a dog take a worse ...
— The Pearl Box - Containing One Hundred Beautiful Stories for Young People • "A Pastor"

... came on the forty thieves, who, as I told you, were girls; and, there being no thieving to be presently done, and time hanging heavy on their hands, arms, and legs, the forty thief-girls proceeded to light forty cigars. Whereupon the British public gave them a round of applause. Whereupon I fell a thinking; and saw ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin

... that is well known to hunters of "big game" by various names such as "Whiskey Jack", "Moose Bird", "Camp Robber", etc. During the winter months, owing to the scarcity of food, their thieving propensities are greatly enhanced and they remove everything from the camps, which looks as though it might be edible. Birds of this genus are smoky gray on the back and lighter below, shading to white on the throat; the forehead ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed

... squire, the sailor just home from sea, the canny doctor, the lovable parish priest who taught true religion to his flock, but "first he folwed it himselve"; the coarse but good-hearted Wyf of Bath, the thieving miller leading the pilgrims to the music of his bagpipe,—all these and many others from every walk of English life, and all described with a quiet, kindly humor which seeks instinctively the best in human nature, ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long

... this gentleman had done the like, leave was obtained to settle this point by actual examination. The body was found, and the theologian confuted, but no trouble was taken to solder on again the lid of the coffin. A thieving Swede, attending a funeral of one of his countrymen in the same vault, remarked this circumstance, and stole the skull, with the intention of selling it to some disciple of the great philosopher's; and I ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn

... Russia, but now he had given up all hope. Russia was doomed; and Germany, whom he hated and admired, would eat her up. And what did it matter? Perhaps Germany would "run Russia," and then there would be order and less thieving, and this horrible war would stop. How foolish it had been to suppose that any one in Russia would ever do anything. They were all fools and knaves ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole

... her ears, Gervaise walked softly away. But when she found herself alone in the midst of the crowd, she slackened her pace. She was quite resolute. Between thieving and the other, well she preferred the other; for at all events she wouldn't harm any one. No doubt it wasn't proper. But what was proper and what was improper was sorely muddled together in her brain. When you are dying of hunger, you ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... parents educated me in it, and in it I mean to bring up my children.' Then at seeing me fainting, all my companions began to weep. By the time I recovered my consciousness; our husbands had put an end to the thieving rascal. But you, sister, never see ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various

... a dreary swamp—a vast amphitheatre, where liberated felons, robbing contractors, foul miasma, centrifugal pumps, and tertian fevers, fight all day for the mastery. And for what?—for what? To fill the pockets of knavish ministers and thieving officials—to make an arsenal that will never be finished, for a fleet that will never be built." My companion, it is needless to say, was no optimist; but the strange point was, that while he was unsparing of his censure ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever

... was a cheat indeed. This way of breaking, it is nothing else but a more neat way of thieving, of picking of pockets, of breaking open of shops, and of taking from men what one has nothing to do with. But though it seem easy, it is hard to learn; no man that has conscience to God or man, can ever be his crafts-master in this ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... many battles won in the field and Diet; after titanic contests with kings in Christendom, and Solyman in the east, to fall, by the mockery of fate, into the grasp of a thieving mountain rifler— ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham

... remember that well enough, but what connection is there with present circumstances? I was young, clever at thieving, I had all my strength, none watched over me, and I could run off without fear. But to-day men-at-arms are placed at every outlet to watch me, and two of them are lying in wait for me at this very door armed with spits, just as folk lie in wait for a cat ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... was a man inside the god, and started out to see as much with tremendous ceremony. But wasn't—he got sold again. I always did hate scenes and explanations, and long before he came I was out of it all—going home to Banya along the coast, hiding in bushes by day, and thieving food from the villages by night. Only weapon, a spear. No clothes, no money. Nothing. My face, my fortune, as the saying is. And just a squeak of eight thousand pounds of gold—fifth share. But the natives cut up rusty, thank goodness, because they thought it ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... Situation of the Passage to Fernando Po. Fernando Po. Colonization of Fernando Po. Traffic with the Natives. Localities of Fernando Po. The Kroomen. Natives of Fernando Po. Costume of the Natives. Their Thieving Propensities. Punishment of the Thieves. Resources of the Island. Method of obtaining Palm Wine. Island of Anna Bon. Injurious Effects of the Climate. Prospective Commercial Advantages. Voyage to the Calebar River. Geographical and Nautical Directions. The Tornadoes. Superstitious Custom ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... of the ancient greatness of Johore,—how it once ruled the great peninsula that forever points like a lean, disjointed finger down into the heart of the greatest archipelago of the world,—how its ruler was looked up to and made treaties with, by the kings of Europe,—of the coming of the thieving Portuguese and the brutal Dutch,—of the dark, bloody years when the deposed descendants of the once proud Emperors of Johore turned to piracy,—of the new days that commenced when that great Englishman, Sir Stamford Raffles, founded Singapore,—down ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman

... for you, Tom. Cache it this time where those thieving devils won't beat you to it. Coils are hard to get right now. Bill, you'd better run down Lucas way and scout around for barracuda. They were beginning to hit in there strong this time last year. How's the baby? I phoned to town last night ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton

... suddenly, and after some altogether insignificant incident or other, there begin transfers, changes in positions, expulsions from service, losses, sicknesses. The members of society, just as though they had conspired, die, go insane, are caught thieving, shoot or hang themselves; vacancy after vacancy is freed; promotions follow promotions, new elements flow in, and, behold, after two years there is not a one of the previous people on the spot; everything is new, if only the institution has not fallen into pieces completely, ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin

... 820 "Have mercy! Have mercy!" A check to the story; They hurry off quickly To see what has happened; And there on a bank Of a ditch near the roadside, Some peasants are birching A drunken old lackey, Just taken in thieving. A court had been summoned, 830 The judges deciding To birch the offender, That each of the jury (About three and twenty) Should give him a stroke Turn in turn ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov

... to seek the restoration of a backslider because of the disgrace he has brought upon the corps by his falling into old ways; old habits of drunkenness or uncleanness, fighting or thieving, or any other vulgar form of sin. The F.O. should consider the shame of the man himself, if he is permanently left to rot in the ditch of corruption, and the sorrows that burden the heart of His Master, for one for whom He has ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter

... a superb contract for a book, and have prepared the first ten chapters of the sixty or eighty, but I will bet it never sees the light. Don't you let the folks at home hear that. That thieving Alta copyrighted the letters, and now shows no disposition to let me use them. I have done all I can by telegraph, and now await the final result by mail. I only charged them for 50 letters what (even in) greenbacks would amount to less than two ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... best companies. They are generally well and handsomely dressed, so that you take them to be persons of rank; as indeed may sometimes be the case: persons who by extravagance and excesses have reduced themselves to want, and find themselves obliged at last to have recourse to pilfering and thieving. ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz

... swamp till the next night. He meant to steal food and a canoe—and seek for Oneata. But the Manono people found him, and, though he fought desperately, they overcame and bound him, and the women cursed him for a Tafito{*} devil, a thieving beast, and beat and pelted him as the men carried him back to the plantation, tied up like a wild boar, to get their ten dollars reward for him from the manager. And Burton gave him ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke

... held up to admiration as superior in all respects to all others. Some of its more offensive features, such as the Cryptia, child murder, and more glaring atrocities of the Helot system, are suppressed; while the legalized thieving, adultery, and other unnatural practices, are placed in the most favourable or ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... really a soaring bird brought down by the fowler She stood with a dignity that the word did not express There is no driver like stomach Touch sin and you accommodate yourself to its vileness You played for gain, and that was a licenced thieving ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger

... crimes are more numerous and their acts more bold. It is well known that on Independence and Walnut Creeks, within a few miles of this place, a great number of free slaves and Abolitionists are settled whose thieving propensities are well known. We honestly believe that an organized band of these outlaws exists, whose objects are pecuniary gain and spite, to rob us of our property, drive off our cattle and horses, incite our slaves to rebellion, and, when opportunity afford them ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler

... nearly universal indolence and indifference to earning money, the heads of families have to contend; as also against thieving and dirtiness; yet I think the remedy much easier than it appears. If on the one hand, no one were to receive a servant into their house, without respectable references, especially from their last place, and if their having remained one year in ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca

... the lama was one of them. His proof was incontrovertible and according to the law of the country I was bound to give back the animal and accept the loss. However, a half dozen hard-riding Mongol soldiers at once took up the trail of the lama, and the chances are that there will be one less thieving priest before ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews

... remembered Monte Carlo, and for a moment it was to her as shocking a warning as if she had been bidden to keep her husband out of the temptation of thieving. ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge

... side, and carrying in his right hand, with all the solemnity that he could muster, his excellency's hat. He was a footman in gold-laced livery, and we beg leave to give a brief sketch of his history. Trespolo was the child of poor but thieving parents, and on that account was early left an orphan. Being at leisure, he studied life from an eminently social aspect. If we are to believe a certain ancient sage, we are all in the world to solve a problem: as to Trespolo, he desired to live without doing anything; ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - NISIDA—1825 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... everybody old, as soon as their fathers are buried; young Fulcher—I mean he who had been called young, but was now old Fulcher—wanted me to go out and commit larcenies with him; but I told him that I would have nothing more to do with thieving, having seen the ill effects of it, and that I should leave them in the morning. Old Fulcher begged me to think better of it, and his mother joined with him. They offered, if I would stay, to give me Mary Fulcher as a mort, till she ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow

... and put out of this town, and put out of that town, and stuck in the stocks, and whipped and worried and drove. I've no more notion where I was born than you have—if so much. I first become aware of myself down in Essex, a thieving turnips for my living. Summun had run away from me—a man—a tinker—and he'd took the fire with him, and left ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... out at once in search of sticks, they often find at their return the work all destroyed, and the materials carried off. However, I have met with a story which shows that they are not without some sense of the criminality of thieving. There was in a rookery a lazy pair of rooks, who never went out to get sticks for themselves, but made a practice of watching when their neighbours were abroad, and helping themselves from their nests. They had served most of the community in this manner, and by these means had ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various

... son—a thief! I'll have the law of him: I'll sprag his wheel: for all his pretty pace, He'll come a cropper yet, the scrunty wastrel. This comes of marrying into a coper's family: I might have kenned: thieving runs in ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

... had so much as taken possession, swarms of Bedouin came through the premises to loot. Thieving with them is instinctive. They could not understand why they had not a right to help themselves to what the Turks had abandoned. However, a strong guard was posted at once; those Bedouin who had taken up their abode on the premises were evicted; ...
— With the British Army in The Holy Land • Henry Osmond Lock

... a great shock-headed, freckle-faced Borderer, the lineal descendant of a cattle-thieving clan in Liddesdale. In spite of his ancestry he was as solid and sober a citizen as one would wish to see, a town councillor of Melrose, an elder of the Church, and the chairman of the local branch of the Young Men's Christian Association. Brown ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... almost naked, but rich ore packs in such a small compass, and they are so ingenious in stowing it away, that the doorkeepers examine their mouths and ears, and their hair, and constantly find pieces that have been secreted, while a far greater quantity escapes. It is this system of thieving that accounts for the existence of certain little smelting-sheds, close to the works of the Company, who look at them with such feelings as may be imagined. These places profess to smelt ore from one or two little mines in the neighbourhood, but their real object ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor

... the plump man, "Lord love me, what's this? Here's us cheated of a bit of daintiness, here's Abner wi' all the wind knocked out o' him and now here's you for thieving and robbing three poor lorn sailor-men as never raised ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol

... as much in breadth. It has several harbours, and is intersected by considerable valleys of a fertile appearance. The natives, who are at present dependent on Otaheite, are said to be as much addicted to thieving as those of that island. The women are inferior in attractions to any in their neighbourhood. The harbour of Taloo on the north coast is very eligible for vessels—it is situate in 17 deg. 30' latitude, and 150 deg. west ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr

... stand in belong to Government; their own had to be burned, so foul were they. Eighteen thousand pounds had they stolen—to be beggars; and this is the rule, not the exception, as you all know. Why is this your fate and your end? Because a mightier power than man's has determined that thieving shall not thrive. The curse of ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... and tobacco for the trade; others came as sight-seers; others to gamble, and others to steal, [ 1 ] —accomplishments in which the Hurons were proficient: their gambling skill being exercised chiefly against each other, and their thieving talents against those of ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman

... at that time, but a month afterwards Mrs. Hope had walked into the Keep and taken everything in her clever little hands. Drunken, thieving, idle servants had been replaced by men and women thoroughly capable and efficient. The laird's tastes were studied, his wants anticipated, his home became bright, restful, and quiet. The woman was young and wonderfully pretty, and Crawford soon began ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... making cripples and dwarfs was a regular trade. Children were taken (nearly always stolen ones) and their limbs twisted, or their faces distorted, in order to gain sympathy from the passersby, of whom they were taught to beg. That frightful time is long past; but the trades of begging and thieving are still taught. ...
— The Boy Scouts in Front of Warsaw • Colonel George Durston

... singular book," said I at last; "but it does not appear to have been written to prove that thieving is no harm, but rather to show the terrible consequences of crime: it contains ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... Lake they had been held by thieving Indians and a great part of their provisions taken from them, leaving them to make their way in comparative poverty to the next post of ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe

... features—flat nose, forward-opening nostrils, large lips, wide-apart eyes, absent frontal sinus, etc.—resemble for a time those of the savage, so, too, do his instincts. Hence the tendencies to cruelty, to thieving, to lying, so general among children—tendencies which, even without the aid of discipline, will become more or less modified just as the features do. The popular idea that children are "innocent," while it is true with respect to evil knowledge, is totally false with respect to evil ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer

... so that he set it down on the ground cursing, and ran out of the room. It was not long before his squint-eyed wife came in at the front door, and when she saw the pot still steaming on the ground, she cried out, "Thou thief, thou cursed thieving carcass!" and would have flown at the face of my maid. But I threatened her, and told her all that had happened, and that if she would not believe me she might go into the chamber and look out of the window, whence ...
— The Amber Witch • Wilhelm Meinhold

... the true Bedouin cast, and their dialect, though different from that of the peasants, is not a pure Bedouin dialect. They are tributary to the Turkish governors, and at peace with all the country people; but they have the character of having a great propensity to thieving. Their property, besides camels, consists in horses, cows, sheep, and goats. Their chief is Khuder ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt

... Harris, or Thieving Joe, as he was known among his associates, and his wife Moll came to be passengers along with our two little travellers on ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur

... greater part of their gods were conceived by the Greeks as violent, sanguinary, deceitful, dissolute. They ascribed to them scandalous adventures or dishonest acts. Hermes was notorious for his thieving, Aphrodite for her coquetry, Ares for his ferocity. All were so vain as to persecute those who neglected to offer sacrifices to them. Niobe had seen all her children pierced with arrows by Apollo because she ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos

... the scheme, and that it was good. Also the logs were good, while the price was less than he hoped to pay for such timber. His soul was filled with bitterness. The mill was his scheme. He had planned it all. Those thieving Bates had stolen his plan, and his location, and his home, and practically separated him from his wife and children. It was his mill, and all he was getting from it was to work with all his might, and not a decent word from morning until night. That day instead of ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter

... tipping business is what is breaking dad's heart. I think if the servants would arrange a syndicate to rob dad of two or three dol lars a day, by pocket picking, or sneak thieving, he would overlook it, and say that as long as it was one of the customs of the country we should have to submit to it, but when he has paid his bill, with everything charged extra, and the servants line up and look appealingly, or mad, as the case may be, dad is the hardest man to loosen ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck

... man had also, on the very same day, been detected in two or three attempts to steal a knife, and various pieces of iron. It is evident, from the above and other traits, that the natives of this island, like all other savage nations, are naturally addicted to thieving: from the fear of detection, however, the instances of their venturing to indulge the propensity, do not appear ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman

... to see that or any other paddy?" exclaimed the voice of the Englishman, choleric, savage. "Let me out of this blarsted, cheating hole. Who wants to see one of that race of quarrelsome, thieving, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis

... Maia's son Agreed to live as friend and brother; In proof, his bow and shafts the one Chang'd for the well-fill'd purse of t'other. And now, the transfer duly made, Together through the world they rove; The thieving god in arms array'd, And ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... Solomon Island "bucks" who were loafing around his house, and seen how the beast could bite, said he would give us thirteen dollars and a fat hog for him. We agreed, and Dandy was taken on shore and chained up outside the cook-house to keep away thieving natives. ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke

... and yet again he drank of the secret. That he of all men should make this discovery! His danger became as nothing; he forgot even the object of his thieving visit. ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath

... and civic duty," he replied to a persistent interviewer. "If you quit your job tomorrow and went to work on another paper, you would write just what you were told to write. It's morality and civic duty now with you; on the new job it would be backing up a thieving railroad with... morality and civic duty, I suppose. Your price, my son, is just about thirty per week. That's what you sell for. But your paper would sell for a bit more. Pay its price to-day, and it ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London

... all arrivals and departures, to make themselves acquainted by means of spies with the movements of every suspected person in the city, and to raise a body of paggis (trackers), who could follow the footprints of thieves even when they wore thieving shoes,[FN96] till they came up with and arrested them. And lastly, he gave the patrols full power, whenever they might catch a robber in the act, to ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton

... fine-looking and well-formed people; they are of good dispositions, but are much addicted to thieving, which seems indeed to be a national propensity; they are of a light copper colour, and the men wear the hair long and stained at the extremities of a reddish brown colour; sometimes they tie the hair in a knot behind, but the most prevailing custom is to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 579 - Volume 20, No. 579, December 8, 1832 • Various

... effected with secrecy and slyness; robbery, when there is a suggestion of force or violence. The swindler is he who appropriates another's goods by methods of gross deception or false pretenses while the embezzler transfers to himself the funds entrusted to his care. Petty thieving is called pilfering or filching; stealing on a large scale usually has less dishonorable qualificatives. Boodling and lobbying are called politics; watering stock, squeezing out legitimate competition, is called financiering; wholesale confiscation and unjust conquest is ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton

... Knox cared little for any of these things. The watch of the preacher at the door of the Bishop's girnel or storehouse, keeping back the rioters by his exhortations, is a curious illustration of this point. He would not have the people soil their souls with thieving, with the Bishop's meal and malt; as for the historical walls, the altar where the old kings had been anointed or the sanctuary where their ashes lay, what were they? Knox was too much intent on setting Scotland loose from all previous ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... system of brigandage is so very different from that of the Italians, Sicilians, and Greeks, that a word may be said about its peculiar character. In the first place, it has nothing at all to do with robbery and thieving. The Corsican bandit took to a free life among the macchi, not for the sake of supporting himself by lawless depredation, but because he had put himself under a legal and social ban by murdering some one in obedience to the strict code of honour of his country. His victim may have been ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... there arrived at the door, which Una had refastened, a thief laden with spoils of churches, and whatever else he had managed to pick up by stealth. To spend the night in thieving was his custom, and hither he brought his spoils, as he thought none would suspect a blind woman and her daughter of ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various



Words linked to "Thieving" :   thievish, shoplifting, peculation, petty, thieve, dishonest, misappropriation, thievery, grand theft, petit larceny, robbery, dishonorable, grand larceny, pilferage, rustling, breach of trust with fraudulent intent, petty larceny, defalcation, embezzlement, theft, biopiracy, stealing, felony, shrinkage, skimming, misapplication, larceny



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com