Purloined

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To unlawfully take possession of another's belongings or to steal property without consent
2. To wrongfully appropriate someone else's possessions or to acquire an item through theft
3. Taken without permission from someone else, typically by secret or stealthy means

Etymology: "Purloined" is the past form of "purloin," and the verb's original sense was almost the opposite of theft: "to put far away." Middle English "purloynen" meant "to remove," and it came from Anglo-Norman "purloigner," a variant of Old French "porloignier," built from "pur-" (forth, away) and "loin" (far), the same root behind "loin" in "loins" and "lontain" in French. Removing something was simply taking it away from where it belonged, and only later did the word narrow toward taking something without permission. The word is a doublet of "prolong," which descends from the same Old French verb but kept the sense of extending something in time or space. Both words grew from the idea of distance, one stretching a thing out and the other sending it away.

Synonyms: stolen, embezzled, filched, taken, snatched

Antonyms: returned, given, restored