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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








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"Thieving" Quotes from Famous Books



... refused, assumed an air of displeasure, as having been badly treated; and afterwards came with his "Balghere," good-luck salutation, twice a day, and on leaving said, "I am going to pray," till I told him that were I an Arab, his hand and both ears would be cut off for thieving, as he knew, and I wanted no salutations from him. In my distress it was annoying to see Shereef's slaves passing from the market with all the good things that ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone

... heads of the spectators; among whom, I remember, were my neighbours, Mrs. Kangaroo and her daughter; my shoemaker, old Pidgeon, and his little girl; Shark the lawyer; Mrs. Whinchat the milliner; a fellow named Ratt, who had been twenty times taken up for thieving; and the poulterer's son, Bill Goose. I wish you had been with them to have seen how Bruin made Jocko the monkey dance, and how all these folks laughed. They capered about finely to get out of his way; but at last Jocko jumped from his master's head on to Mrs. Whinchat's ...
— Comical People • Unknown

... I was fishing for her. She would pounce on them fish and carry them off and growl, and she knew when I got a bite,—she'd watch the line; but when we were mackereling she never give us any trouble. She would never lift a paw to touch any of our fish. She didn't have the thieving ways common to most cats. She used to set round on deck in fair weather, and when the wind blew she al'ays kept herself below. Sometimes when we were in port she would go ashore awhile, and fetch back a bird or ...
— Deephaven and Selected Stories & Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... most of them will slight their work, or be idle altogether. In which case correction cannot retrieve either, but often produces evils which are worse than the disease. Nor is there any other mode than this to prevent thieving and other disorders, the consequences of opportunities. You will recollect that your time is paid for by me, and if I am deprived of it, it is worse even than robbing my purse, because it is also a breach of trust, which every honest man ought to hold most sacred. You have found me, and ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox

... creatures became half demented by terror, and scarcely knew what they said. But enough was from time to time substantiated to prove how very terrible were the scenes which sometimes went on within these sealed abodes; and more than once some careless watchman or thieving and neglectful nurse had been whipped through the streets for misdemeanours brought home to ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green

... said Adone bitterly. "Baruffo was a peasant outlawed; if he had been a banker, or a minister, or a railway contractor, he might have gone on thieving all his life, and met only praise. They keep poor Baruffo safe in their accursed prisons, but they will take care never to keep, or take even for a day, law-breakers whose sins are far blacker than his, ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida

... coil 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 ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton

... to be carefully tended, protected from foxes, hawks and other enemies; the fierce half-wild hogs could take care of themselves. All that they needed was a peasant herdsman with a dog to keep them together and see that thieving neighbors did not help themselves. There was more food in one hog than in a whole covey of game birds, to say nothing of the trouble of catching and cooking ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey

... about the worst thing you could have done—lift your hand against the parson's son! I'm sure he must have deserved it, but—still you shouldn't have done it. Unless he's accused you of thieving, for no honest man need stand that from any one, not even ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... is there being no more hangings for thieves, that are worse again than murderers that might do their deed out of heat. It is thieving ...
— New Irish Comedies • Lady Augusta Gregory

... art, which prepared coverings in entire pieces, and the art of sheltering, and subtracted the various arts of making water-tight which are employed in building, and in general in carpentering, and in other crafts, and all such arts as furnish impediments to thieving and acts of violence, and are concerned with making the lids of boxes and the fixing of doors, being divisions of the art of joining; and we also cut off the manufacture of arms, which is a section ...
— Statesman • Plato

... of view advanced by the chair, the miners decided that the two thieves should be whipped and banished from camp. A strong feeling prevailed that any man who, in this age of plenty, would descend to petty thieving, was a poor, miserable creature to be pitied. Some charitably inclined individual actually took up a small collection which was presented to the thieves after they ...
— Gold • Stewart White

... 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 them nearly filled with wretched-looking objects who had been brought ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... to defile the People! you liars, mark! Not for numberless agonies, murders, lusts, For court thieving in its manifold mean forms, worming from his simplicity the poor man's wages, For many a promise sworn by royal lips, and broken, and laughed at in the breaking, Then in their power, not for all these did the blows strike revenge, or the heads of the nobles ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman

... for the village of Mudros East. It proved to be a collection of ramshackle dwellings, as little habitable as English cowhouses; of stores, where thieving Greeks sold groceries to the soldiers; and of taverns, whose vines hung heavily clustered over porch and window. There was an ornate and lofty Greek Orthodox Church, and a little, unconsidered cemetery, ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond

... book-thief. He used to tell how he had lifted a book, of which he had long been in search, from a stall on the Pont-Neuf; "but," says Tallemant (whom Janin does not seem to have consulted), "there are many people who don't think it thieving to steal a book unless you sell it afterwards." But Du Monstier took a less liberal view where his own books were concerned. The Cardinal Barberini came to Paris as legate, and brought in his suite Monsignor Pamphilio, who afterwards became Innocent X. The Cardinal paid a ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang

... affairs. It 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 Indians, after they had ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... of pleasure, or the more active steps taken in the pantomimic fight. Shooting with the bow, the gun, and the pistol, is an exercise for Circassian boys at an age when those of countries more civilized are spelling, syllable by syllable, the lessons of the primer and the catechism. The art of thieving adroitly is also reckoned an accomplishment by these mountaineers, as formerly by the Spartans, when the despoiled is an enemy, or at least a member of another tribe. And as in their council-rings there is as often an opportunity for the display of ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie

... Priapea which should probably be assigned to this period. The third may indeed have been an inscription on a pedestal of the scare-crow god set out to keep off thieving rooks and urchins ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank

... of Rotterdam: the islanders here resemble those on the island of Amsterdam. The people were very good-natured, parted readily with what they had, did not seem to be acquainted with the use of arms, but were given to thieving like the natives of Amsterdam Island. Here we took in water, and other refreshments, with all the conveniency imaginable. We made the whole circuit of the island, which we found well-stocked with cocoa-trees, very regularly planted; we ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton

... 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 ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... 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 ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... audience in good humor by presenting all this in a spirit of crude comedy and, to increase the comedy element, he introduced a number of trained cats. Although the thieving proclivities of cats are well known, Dufour's pets showed no desire to share his repast, and he had them trained to obey his commands during mealtime. At the close of the meal he would become violently angry ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini

... the pittance that he grudges them; in countless mines and mills, the Eagle is trading human lives for coal and flour; in Wall Street yonder, the Eagle is juggling as he will with life's necessities—thieving from the farmer, thieving from the consumer, thieving from the poor fools who try to play the Eagle's game, and driving them at will to despair and ruin and death: look whither you may, men die that the Eagle may grow fat. So the Eagle thrives, ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell

... infernal regions. In conjunction with Hercules, he patronized wrestling and the gymnastic exercises; to show that address upon these occasions should always be united with force. The invention of the art of thieving was attributed to him, and the ancients used to paint him on their doors, that he, as god of thieves, might prevent the intrusion of others. For this reason he was much adored by shepherds, who imagined ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway

... Major Hawke was apparently busied with the "dispatches" which duly mystified the Club quid mines, as they were ostentatiously displayed in the letter-box. No one but Ram Lal knew of the abstraction from the mail, and destruction of these carefully sealed envelopes of blank paper. But the thieving mail clerk in their secret pay, laughed as he consigned them later to ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage

... 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 would shift its present rotten policy ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London

... religious services and schools are conducted in their own language. They have an educated Indian clergyman who can scarcely speak English, while Mr. Gilfillan speaks the Chippewa as fluently as his mother-tongue. They have few quarrels, no thieving, no drunkenness, no abject poverty. They are not more perfect than others of human kind, but according to their light and sphere they are as good as a similar average of whites anywhere. The wise purpose ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... sits as native assessor to the European judge-president. There are superior courts at the three great towns, Batavia, Samarang, and Soerabaia, and a supreme court at Batavia. Murder and crimes of violence are generally rare, but small thieving is common throughout ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold

... What had Pietro done that he should lie there? Only 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 ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman

... shall fly sky-high and the black raven shall whiten and myrrh shall wax honey-sweet, then will the ignorant and the fool comprehend and converse. O dear my son, an thou would be wise restrain thy tongue from leasing and thy hand from thieving and thine eyes from evil glancing; and then, and then only, shalt thou be called a sage. O dear my son, suffer the wise man strike thee with his staff rather than the fool anoint thee with his sweetest unguent.[FN27] O dear my son, be thou humble in thy ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... the risk," added the sergeant, who had not quite finished. He ended with an irrepressible outburst of honest indignation: "Why, you blasted, thieving Dutch scum, do you think I don't know you were stealing that span ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... 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 against detection, ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis

... 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

... "You have that kind of white men, don't you? These fellows are probably Turkey Leg's thieving Cheyennes. We shall hear ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman

... the cliff-edge; his father still lived in one of the small cottages near by, and his grandfather and great-grandfather had spent their lives in the same village before him. Probably the progenitors of the Caselys and the Ellingtons came over together on a thieving expedition, and, finding the natives of the region amenable to emphatic arguments, settled quietly and used their long vessels henceforth for comparatively ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman

... Lord of Pengerswick, who knew by means of magic all about his coming, and knowing his thieving ways, determined to punish the old thief for all the mischief he had done during his absence. So he began at once to work his spells, meaning to give the giant a ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... boat, in endeavouring to seize fowls or meat that was hung on the mainstay, always alighting on the point she sprang from. At other times she would attempt to crawl up it like a cat, in order to steal what was there. Her proneness to thieving was very great; I have frequently seen her eating stolen things when she would refuse what was offered her; it was never safe ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes

... tent, one large American axe, his two uniform coats, his shirts, beads and cloth, powder, pistol, and hatchet—on the ground, to go and assist the cart out of a quagmire, he had returned to the place where he had left it and could not find it, that he believed that some thieving Washensi, who always lurk in the rear of caravans to pick up stragglers, had decamped with it. Which dismal tale told me at black midnight was not received at all graciously, but rather with most wrathful words, all of which the penitent captain received as his proper due. Working myself into a ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... juvenile courts, our child welfare exhibits are so persistently—and rightly —showing the wrongdoing child as the helpless victim of heredity and environment that hasty thinkers are jumping to the conclusion that, since a child is not to blame for his thieving tendencies, it is our duty, rather than punish, to let him go on stealing; since it is a natural instinct for a boy to like the sound of crashing glass and the exercise of skill needed to hit a mark, we must not ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine

... as old as life, property and the pocket invented theft, late-born among the arts. It was not until avarice had devised many a cunning trick for the protection of wealth, until civilisation had multiplied the forms of portable property, that thieving became a liberal and an elegant profession. True, in pastoral society, the lawless man was eager to lift cattle, to break down the barrier between robbery and warfare. But the contrast is as sharp between the savagery of the ancient reiver and the polished performance of Captain Hind as between ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley

... it would do just as well to preach that to the thieving man as to the suffering slave? I think so. Then this same Bible teaches witchcraft, that spirits go into the bodies of the man, and pigs, and that God himself made a trade with the devil, and the ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll

... nose up in the air and said it seemed as if the room smelled mousey. Then when I started to run home, because I couldn't listen to such talk a minute longer, she cried—'There he goes now, Miss Ruth! The nasty, thieving, little beast! If there's a creature I can't abide, it's a mouse, to ...
— The Graymouse Family • Nellie M. Leonard

... gang of thieving Kentuckians," she said, hotly; "you are afraid to go home, while our boys ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox

... of these people have any fixed occupation, and it is difficult to discover how they subsist. In fact, the life of every one of them is a problem. One might have supposed that they maintained a precarious existence by thieving or by begging, as they are far below the ordinary tramp; for with the exception of perhaps two or three of them, these cave-dwellers possess absolutely nothing, and know no trade whatever. They sleep on dry leaves kept together by four pieces of wood, and their sole covering consists of scraps of ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould

... (Avondale) in former times, Was the cursed climate of rebellious crimes: For Cumberland and it, both kingdoms borders, Were ever ordered, by their own disorders, Some sharking, shifting, cutting throats, and thieving, Each taking pleasure in the other's grieving; And many times he that had wealth to-night, Was by the morrow morning beggared quite: Too many years this pell-mell fury lasted, That all these borders were quite spoiled and wasted, Confusion, hurly-burly reigned and revelled, The ...
— The Pennyles Pilgrimage - Or The Money-lesse Perambulation of John Taylor • John Taylor

... old creature, that wherever I go he has to go too. I had to bring him out here with me to save the scandal he would have made. Sure, he's harmless enough anywhere, but what could he do if some of those thieving scoundrels rode up here and robbed me of the last few papers and things those bank rascals have not yet had the chance of stealing? But sit down, Mr. Durham, sit down. I'll tell the old fool to get you some tea—a cup won't harm you after your long ride. And maybe ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott

... walking almost at his 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; that was ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - NISIDA—1825 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... must you always be thieving? Give me back that letter. I'll take it from you by force. You shall not leave my room till I have ...
— An Ideal Husband - A Play • Oscar Wilde

... birds go 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 just finished ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various

... 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 slay him ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton

... among these mountains. Gold, and not scenery, was the object of their search. The great canons were outside of the gold regions, and so inaccessibly situated that no one except the Indians looked upon them until 1851. In that year a party of soldiers following the trail of some thieving Indians discovered and entered the Yosemite Valley, but it was not explored until 1855. For many years the valley could be reached only by the roughest trails, but as its advantages became more widely known roads were built, and there are now three different wagon routes ...
— The Western United States - A Geographical Reader • Harold Wellman Fairbanks

... 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

... 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 Ireland ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels

... custody under any circumstances. But we shall save you the trouble of doing so by deciding the matter on other grounds. The court has heard from your own lips, within a few days, that you are, or have been, engaged in a business such as to make thieving and lying a common occurrence in your life. The court has also heard from your own lips that during the time this child was in your custody, you not only treated him inhumanly as regarded his body, but that you put forth every effort ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene

... on a chair, and looked through the glass screen. Old Powitt was hanging by the neck from the brass curtain-rod in Mr. Ravengar's room. While young Powitt was trying to get out of their difficulties by thieving, old Powitt had taken a shorter way. Mr. Ravengar looked at the body swinging there, and I heard him say, "Ah!" ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett

... equal amount of water when near the point of delivery. To prevent this, it is common to see large demijohns with padlocks on the corks. These are frequently stolen. In fact, the carriers are much addicted to both lying and thieving, as might be expected from the lowest class of a people on whom the debasing slave system has ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... have chosen Christmas eve for a thieving expedition if there had been any other recourse. Unfortunately there was none. The burglar's profession, so far as he had practised it, was undergoing a timely eclipse. Time was when it had been lucrative, its rewards great. Then the law, which is no respecter ...
— A Little Book for Christmas • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... like ony whunstane, [any whinstone] And haud their noses to the grunstane; [hold, grindstone] Ply ev'ry art o' legal thieving; No matter—stick ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson

... 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 ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 579 - Volume 20, No. 579, December 8, 1832 • Various

... you thieving beast!" said Sam, as with hearty good will he brought his whip vigorously down on a powerful old dog that was making a cunning attempt to rob Spitfire of about ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young

... Brought up in a comfortless, poverty-stricken home, without any religious teaching or influences, what wonder that they became addicted to most of the petty vices,—that they acquired an unenviable reputation for mischief, mendacity, and thieving in ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley

... is it to cheat the cheater, No treason to betray the traitor, Nor is it theft, I'm not deceiving, To thieve from him who lives by thieving. ...
— The Poetry of Wales • John Jenkins

... this venturing into a camp of hostile Indians through the darkness, but Donald reflected that it would be even worse by daylight. He also argued, that while success in his proposed thieving would mean everything to him, he could not be worse off than he was a few hours since, even if he failed and was captured. So he crept forward with the noiseless motions of a serpent, until the conical lodges were plainly in view by the dim ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore

... yet venture to pronounce an opinion on the character of the Kailouees. They decidedly differ from the Haghar and Azgher Tuaricks, in being more civil and companionable. But they seem to have acquired from Soudan the habit of petty thieving, from which the Haghars are ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson

... 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 ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... Gordon, Lord Byron, to Sir Walter Scott, Bart." It contained the letter which accompanied the gift till lately: it has disappeared; no one guesses who took it, but whoever he was, as my guide observed, he must have been a thief for thieving's sake truly, as he durst no more exhibit his autograph than tip himself a bare bodkin. Sad, infamous tourist, indeed! Although I saw abundance of comfortable-looking desks and arm chairs, yet this room seemed rather too large and fine for work, and I found accordingly, after passing a double ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 339, Saturday, November 8, 1828. • Various

... of violating the rules of the jail, Daley is guilty of misdemeanour, and the thieving has been aggravatingly continued. If we put one, we must put ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams

... at my camp fire at night. I procured two short sticks, at the end of one I attached a bit of red cloth or rag to be used as a lure. They are the most curious birds in existence, and this together with their thieving propensities is so powerful that when their desires for appropriation are excited they possess little or no fear. I would sit by the fire holding out the red rag, when in a few moments a slight rustle would ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth

... perfect Thug in his nature, without any religious basis to his Thuggeeism. I pitied Potts for being the father of such a son. I could not let the little devil live in my house; his cruelty to animals which he delighted to torture, his thieving propensities, and his infernal deceit, were all so intolerable. He was not more than twelve, but he was older in iniquity than many a gray- headed villain. To oblige Potts, whom I still trusted ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille

... birds for medical 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

... belief is odious; and secondly, in connection with the everlasting troubles of this unhappy country it was hopelessly besmirched; it had been the cry of dark barbarism, the cloak of lawlessness, of crimes, of rapacity, of simple thieving. ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... which has been abolished, the children (as the French are fond of examples from the ancients) will take their lessons, like the Greeks, in the open air; and, in the mean while, become expert in lying and thieving, ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... cabin door against thieving pack rats, and went down to the river, where his old-fashioned California rocker stood at the water's edge. He started to ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart

... cousins the gerardias, the Downy False Foxglove is only a partial parasite, attaching its roots by disks or suckers to the roots of white oak or witch hazel; not only that, but, quite as frequently, groping blindly in the dark, it fastens suckers on its own roots, actually thieving from itself! It is this piratical tendency which makes transplanting of foxgloves into our gardens so very difficult, even when lifted with plenty of their beloved vegetable mould. The term false foxglove, ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al

... 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

... gamekeeper's velveteen coat which he wore; and, strange to say, a button of the exact kind was found behind the counter of the shop where the thefts occurred. No public action was taken in the matter, but it came to be strongly suspected that the professional thief-taker had himself been guilty of thieving. Other suspicious circumstances occurred, but he was a clever man, and nothing was brought home against him. It was believed, however, that something of the truth had become known at head quarters, as his appointment was ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter

... fickle levity which distinguishes the natives of Otaheite, and the sedate east observable amongst many of those of Tongataboo. They seem to live very sociably in their intercourse with one another; and, except the propensity to thieving, which seems innate in most of the people we have visited in this ocean, they were exceedingly friendly to us. And it does their sensibility no little credit, without flattering ourselves, that when they saw the various articles ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... the northbound throngs of cattle, appeared along the lower trails—with some reason, occasionally; for in a great northbound herd there might be many cows included under brands other than those of the road brands registered for the drovers of that particular herd. Cattle thieving became an industry of certain value, rivaling in some localities the operations of the bandits of the placer camps. There was great wealth suddenly to be seen. The weak and the lawless, as well as the strong and the unscrupulous, set out to reap after their own fashion where they had ...
— The Passing of the Frontier - A Chronicle of the Old West, Volume 26 in The Chronicles - Of America Series • Emerson Hough

... Connection with the preceptor's wife at the preceptor's command does not stain the pupil. The sage Uddalaka caused his son Swetaketu to be begotten by a disciple. A person by committing theft for the sake of his preceptor in a season of distress is not stained with sin. One, however, that takes to thieving for procuring enjoyments for himself becomes stained. One is not stained by stealing from other than Brahmanas (in a season of distress and for the sake of one's preceptor). Only one that steals under ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... should refuse 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

... 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; ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin

... little child. Kinchin coes; orphan beggar boys, educated in thieving. Kinchin morts; young girls under the like circumstances and training. Kinchin morts, or coes in slates; beggars' children carried at their mother's backs in sheets. Kinchin cove; a little ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.

... 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. ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... applauded on all sides, for Madame was reminded if it had not been for her thieving propensities she would never have had the nice quantities of warm water we could now heat for her bath. Therefore she pocketed her principles at the shrine of her baths, at least to a ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton

... with the forked tongue. My brother remembers that only a few years ago when the people to which this lying snake belongs came over to this country and tried to drive away from their hunting-grounds the Indians of this country, the Police protected the Indians and drove back the hungry thieving Sioux to their own land. And now a little bird has been telling me that this lying snake has been speaking into the ears of our Indian brothers and trying to persuade them to dig up the hatchet against their white brothers, their friends. The Police know all about this and laugh at it. The ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor

... for the prowlers to softly raise the trap door leading to the kitchen, and, once there, the rest of the house was practically open. Such a thing as burglary or sneak thieving about the officers' quarters had been unheard of at Frayne for many a year. One precaution the visitors had taken, that of unbolting the back door, so that retreat might not be barred in case they were discovered. ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King

... some advantage for the king. [5] With such examples before them, all the Asiatics have turned to injustice and impiety. For what the leaders are, that, as a rule, will the men below them be. Thus has lawlessness increased and grown among them. [6] And injustice has grown, and thieving. Not only criminals, but men who are absolutely innocent are arrested and forced to pay fines for no reason whatsoever: to be known to have wealth is more dangerous than guilt, so that the rich do not care to have any dealings with the powerful, and dare not even risk appearing ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon

... farther either their deeds or their religion, I must for an instant meet the objection which I suppose the extreme probity of the nineteenth century must feel acutely against these men,—that they all lived by thieving. ...
— The Pleasures of England - Lectures given in Oxford • John Ruskin

... features are not of 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 ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt

... herd of about 1,400 fat cattle were driven along in triumph, followed by the admiring population of thieving niggers, who hail his arrival as the harbinger of fat times, Gondokoro being the general depot for all stolen cattle, slaves. &c., and the starting point for ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... I was told that Suwarora, its great king, desired to give me an audience, and after days of more impudent thieving on the part of his officers, my man Bombay came with exciting ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various

... under the balcony the late flowers were taking strangely vivid colours out of the bright sky above, and some bits of broken glass, stuck in the mortar on the top of the opposite wall as a protection against thieving boys, glowed like a line of rough rubies against the misty distance. Even the white walls of the bare cell and the coarse grey blanket lying across the foot of the small bed drank in a little of the colour, and looked less grey ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford

... faces in 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 ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... half filled with a most curious collection of small articles for which the birds could have no use, but which the thieving Jackdaws had stolen during many years from the homes of men. And as the nest was safely hidden where no human being could reach it, this lost property would never ...
— The Marvelous Land of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... "Shrewdly spoken, comrade. But there is no time to go round the place and prove that we be honest Protestants and good sailors, whilst the little man is a thieving Papist and murderous traitor. We should cause clamour enough to give him warning and time for escape. We will get within. Thou wilt stay with the widow, and keep her from doing us a mischief. I will see to my ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

... he had been run through by an enemy; one, when all his fellow-soldiers were killed upon the spot, as cunningly perhaps as cowardly, made his escape from the field; another, while he was a hanging, the rope broke, and so he saved his neck, and renewed his licence for practising his old trade of thieving; another broke gaol, and got loose; a patient, against his physician's will, recovered of a dangerous fever; another drank poison, which putting him into a violent looseness, did his body more good than hurt, to the great grief of his wife, who hoped upon this occasion to have become ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus

... self-deceiving By such tricks to hope for gain: All that's ever got by thieving Turns ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole

... most depraved ever seen: their thieving instincts had no bounds; so they had hardly entered Nueva Vizcaya when they started to give themselves up furiously to robbery, looking upon all things as loot; in the very shadow of these soldiers the province was invaded by a mob of ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester

... distance, braving the sharks, and, reaching the island, hid in a taro 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 thirty lashes as ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke

... railed, just as the last armful of hams and sides of bacon was thrown into the coach. "We heard tales of how ye robbed and plundered about York, unbeknownst to the general, and I've no doubt ye are thieving ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... my dismissal, I presume," responded Raikes sourly as he replaced the gem, from which he seemed unable to remove his thieving eyes. ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder

... Thieves.—Natives are apt to creep up to tents, and, putting their hands under the bottom of them, to steal whatever they can: a hedge of thorn-bushes is a protection against this kind of thieving. In some countries a net, with three or four bells attached to it, is thrown over the packages inside a tent. Strings tied horizontally, a foot above the ground, from package to package, are found effective in tripping intruders, See also ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... 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

... need, and what they see their fellows need, is a remedy. Sending a fever patient to hospital is a poor expedient unless we cure the disease. Sending a thief to prison is a poor affair if he remains a thief. It is not in reality a victory over thieving; it is, ...
— Our Master • Bramwell Booth

... of honey, or canteen of brandy was hanging on my rifle pole in the morning, I only did what I enjoined on the men, "say nothing and ask no question." And so it was with nearly all the Captains in the army. And be it said to the credit of the Southern troops, pilfering or thieving was almost an unknown act while camping in our own country. It was only done in the mountains of Virginia or East Tennessee, where the citizens were generally our enemies, and who were willing to give aid and comfort to the Federals, while to the Southern troops ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert

... when he is among ten thousand; neither is the solitude so uncomfortable to be alone without any other creature, as it is to be alone in the midst of wild beasts. Man is to man all kind of beasts—a fawning dog, a roaring lion, a thieving fox, a robbing wolf, a dissembling crocodile, a treacherous decoy, and a rapacious vulture. The civilest, methinks, of all nations, are those whom we account the most barbarous; there is some moderation and good nature in the Toupinambaltians ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley

... my little Tom Thumb!" said he, "have I caught you at your bad tricks at last? Now I will reward you for thieving." Then he drew the string tight around Tom's neck and shook the bag. The cherry-stones bruised Tom Thumb's legs, thighs, and body sadly, which made him beg to be let out and promise never to be guilty of such ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... arrived at man's estate, he settled as a small trader in London, of which City he probably became a freeman; for in a pamphlet addressed to the City of London,[41:2] he claims to be "one of thy sons by freedom." He then goes on to relate how, "by thy cheating sons in the thieving art of buying and selling, and by the burdens of and for the soldiery in the beginning of the war," he "had been beaten out of both estate and trade," and had been forced "to accept of the good-will of friends, crediting of me, to live ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens

... of what will be, Giles has enough to do protecting the buried grain from thieving rooks and crows; one of the multifarious tasks being to collect the birds that have been ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson

... behalf—the minutes were filled with sufficient interest to make them pass unreckoned. But to sit here and wait, to sit here and watch the seconds wasted, to sit here and be conscious of each one of them as it bit, like a thieving wharf rat, into his dwindling Present and carried the morsel of time back to the greedy Past, was a different matter. When finally Saul appeared with a fat cigar in one corner of his chubby mouth, Donaldson was halfway across ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... have your hundred men honestly at country work; but you don't like the sight of human beings in your fields; you like better to see a smoking kettle. You pay, as an amateur, for that pleasure, and you employ your fifty men in picking oakum, or begging, rioting, and thieving. ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... smallest item would be the cost of crime itself—the actual loss caused to the community by the thieving of thieves,—of the thieves, that is, who have been convicted and condemned as such; for there is no way of figuring on how much the undetected thieves steal. Every time we shake the social body, in this or that spasm of probing and ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne

... fulfilled throughout the whole of this Christian dispensation. It shows the wonders of God's grace. Jesus called Herod a "fox." Luke 13:32. He certainly did not mean that he was truly a fox, but that he had a thieving, dishonest, foxlike disposition. Paul says, "Beware of dogs." Phil. 3:2. He is not giving us a warning against this literal animal, but against men that have a fierce and doglike nature. Jesus again says, "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr

... and into giving them fancy prices for things you were trading in, and for things of no earthly use to you, or any one else! The trader's existence during this period is marked by every unpleasantness save dulness; from that he is spared by the presence of a mob of noisy, dangerous, thieving savages all over his place all day; invading his cook-house, to put some nastiness into his food as a trade charm; helping themselves to portable property at large; and making themselves at home to the extent of sitting on his dining-table. At night those customers ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... part to keep the home together. If she seeks love outside marriage she must play fair, she mustn't be an embezzling partner; she mustn't give her husband another man's children to support and so take away from his own children;—that's thieving. The social structure, the family, are unharmed, if one is brave and wise. Love and marriage can rarely be combined and to renounce love is to cripple one's life, to miss the best thing it has to give. You, at all events, Amabel, may ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... Gnat, with her tenacious lying-in-wait and her reckless burglaries, is not to feed herself at the harvester's expense: she could get her living out of the flowers with much less trouble than her thieving trade involves. The most, I think, that she can allow herself to do in the Halictus' cellars is to take one morsel just to ascertain the quality of the victuals. Her great, her sole business is to settle her family. The ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre

... I do. I've been one of 'em—'I know all about that,' says I. 'You want to share the plunder, that is the sense of your virtuous cry.' So I had 'em up here; and then there was no more virtuous howling, but a deal of virtuous thieving, and modest drinking, and pure-minded selling of my street-door to the highest male bidder. And they will corrupt the boy; and if they do, I'll cuts their black hearts out with my riding-whip. But I suppose I must keep them on; they are my own flesh and blood; and if I was to be ill and dying, they'd ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade

... a foolish self-deceiving By such tricks to hope for gain: All that's ever got by thieving Turns to ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole

... King had finished his story, Szabo, his eldest son, said to him: 'Forgive me, father, if I say I think you are mistaken. I am sure there are many men in your kingdom who could protect these trees from the cunning arts of a thieving magician; I myself, who as your eldest son claim the first right to do so, will mount guard over the fruit ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various

... combined with the immediateness of our peril to fill my eyes with tears. After all, I thought - and perhaps the thought was laughably vain - we were here three very noble human beings to perish in defence of a thieving banker. ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson

... called old Fulcher, it being our English custom to call 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, {264} till she ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... he grew rich, and with his riches grew so Keen the desire to see his home again, He thought himself in duty bound to do so, And not be always thieving on the main; Lonely he felt, at times, as Robin Crusoe, And so he hired a vessel come from Spain, Bound for Corfu: she was a fine polacca, Manned with twelve ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... night, however, the thieving was renewed, and carried to a more alarming extent, inasmuch as it was found in the morning that some of the natives had not only stolen the lead off the ship's stern, but had also cut away many of the ropes, ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik

... was. The burden of the theft crushed my heart to the dust. Perhaps notes would have made it seem less like thieving, ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore

... cheated a confiding friend; item, faithless to master; item, committed perjury consciously, cheerfully, in set form of words; item, dug your way into houses through the walls; item, caught at thieving; item, strung up repeatedly and plead your case before eight bold, brawny beef-eaters with ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius

... they make so little reserve, that if they fall sick the parish must keep them, if they are out of place, they must prostitute their bodies, or starve; so that from clopping and changing, they generally proceed to whoring and thieving, and this is the reason why our streets swarm ...
— Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business • Daniel Defoe



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



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