Purloyne

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To take something belonging to another person without permission and with intent to keep it
2. Making off with someone else's property secretly, as a thief would do when taking goods unlawfully
3. Stealing or appropriating an article dishonestly, typically by quietly removing it from its owner

Etymology: "Purloin" is a spelling that has drifted far from its origin. It comes from Anglo-Norman and Old French "purloigner," meaning to put far away or to delay, built from "pur-" (from Latin "pro-," forward) and "loin" (from Latin "longe," far). The sense of "far away" survives in the word's original idea: to take something and carry it off out of sight. Its earliest English uses in the 1400s were often legal and sometimes meant to remove something from its proper place or to put off a matter, rather than to steal it outright. Over the following centuries the sense narrowed toward theft. By the 1500s "purloin" most often meant to steal something quietly, usually a small item or something taken from an employer or a household. The spelling "purloyne" in your request is an older form, and English spelling settled into "purloin" in the 1600s, when writers began to regularize the word's appearance to match its French source.

Synonyms: purloin, steal, pilfer, filch, embezzle