Purloiners

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Individuals who steal something with deceit and cunning; those who take someone else's possessions unlawfully or secretly; people engaged in the act of appropriate wrongful taking of goods or property from another person or source
2. Characters known for their sly and stealthy theft of items that do not belong to them; persons who deceitfully acquire possessions through trickery or misrepresentation; individuals involved in pilfering or theft, often in a clandestine manner
3. Agents of theft who clandestinely take items that are not theirs; individuals who engage in dishonest practices to acquire someone else's belongings; persons notorious for their skill in stealing through covert means

Etymology: "Purloiners" is the plural of "purloiner," a person who purloins, and the word is built from "purloin" plus the agent suffix "-er," meaning one who performs the action. The sense of the root verb is what gives the noun its character: "purloin" carries the idea of taking something by stealth, so a purloiner is someone who makes a habit of quiet, underhanded theft rather than open robbery. The noun simply follows the verb it comes from, so the history of "purloiners" is really the history of "purloin." Because the plural adds only the regular "-s," there is no separate development to trace for this form.

Synonyms: thieves, robbers, stealers, plunderers, bandits