larceny
noun


- stealing, especially (in the US) the crime of taking something that does not belong to you

- the unlawful taking of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it permanently

Cambridge Dictionary, Merriam-Webster

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WORD ORIGIN

The word "larceny" derives from the Anglo-French larcin or Old French larrecin. These forms evolved from Medieval Latin latrocinium, meaning "theft" or "robbery". The Latin latrocinium comes from latro meaning "robber", "bandit", or "mercenary soldier".

In legal terminology, "larceny" emerged in English around the 15th-16th centuries to describe the specific crime of theft of personal property without force. This distinguished it from robbery (which involves force or threats) and other forms of theft.

The term has maintained its specialized legal meaning while becoming part of common vocabulary for describing theft, particularly in formal or legal contexts.

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FUNNY THEFTS

-  The Gardner Museum Robbery (1990, Boston, USA): Two men disguised as police officers entered the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, claiming to investigate a disturbance. They tied up the guards and stole 13 artworks valued at approximately $500 million. The case remains unsolved.

-  The Antwerp Diamond Robbery (2003, Belgium): Leonardo Notarbartolo led a team that stole over $100 million in diamonds and other valuables from the Antwerp Diamond Center. Evidence, including a partially eaten salami sandwich with DNA, linked him to the crime.

-  The Great Canadian Maple Syrup Robbery (2011–2012, Quebec, Canada): Approximately 3,000 tons of maple syrup, valued at around C$18.7 million, were stolen from a storage facility. Thieves replaced the syrup with water in barrels. Multiple individuals were convicted.

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SYNONYMS

appropriation, bag job, burglary, caper, defalcation, embezzlement, extortion, filching, five-finger discount, fraud, grand theft, grift, heist, hijacking, hoist, holdup, housebreaking, inside job, knocking off, LARCENY, looting, misappropriation, nicking, peculation, pickpocketing, pilfering, pinching, piracy, plundering, pocketing, poaching, purloining, rip-off, robbery, scam, shoplifting, skimming, smash-and-grab, smuggling, snatching, stealing, sticky fingers, swiping, swindling, theft, unlawful acquisition

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SMUGGLE OWAD into an English conversation today, say something like:

”The LARCENY synonym 'five-finger discount' has been popular in the language since the mid-1960s."

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