Cleptomaniac

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An individual with a compulsive disorder who feels a persistent need to steal items, often without any practical use or intention to keep them
2. A person experiencing a psychological condition that drives them to take others' belongings without needing or wanting those possessions
3. A person affected by a psychological compulsion to steal items, typically driven by an irrational urge rather than the necessity of possession or value

Etymology: The Greek verb "kléptō" meant "I steal," and the Greeks had a word for a thief, "kléptēs," that was already old by the time it passed into the vocabulary of modern medicine. The compulsion itself took its name much later. "Kleptomania" was coined in the nineteenth century by combining that Greek root with "-mania," a suffix from Greek "mania," meaning madness or frenzy, which doctors used for obsessive conditions of many kinds. The result is a clinical term built entirely from Greek parts, not a word that ancient physicians ever used. The spelling "cleptomaniac" is a variant of the more common "kleptomaniac," which keeps the Greek "k" that the word's root carries. The "-iac" ending marks the person affected by the condition, so the noun describes a sufferer rather than the act of stealing.

Synonyms: thief, shoplifter, larcener, pilferer, stealer

Antonyms: honest person, law-abiding citizen, upstanding citizen, good Samaritan, philanthropist