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The award-winning 2019 video game Untitled Goose Game, in which players control the titular (or “un-titular”?) waterfowl through several levels of light and family-friendly mayhem, serves as an excellent primer on the meaning of filch. In fact, many of the game’s objectives involve waddling furtively around a quaint little scene, such as a garden, and trying to avoid detection by humans while you pilfer, say, a pumpkin or a woolen hat. To filch is to steal something (usually, though not always, a small or relatively unimportant something) in secret. So why not just use steal? There’s often a distinct twang of humor or mischievousness in filch that’s not inherent in plain old steal, and that reflects a casualness or nonchalance on the part of the silly goose—whether literal or figurative—snatching the pie from the windowsill.
Examples of filch in a Sentence
Miles Klee, Rolling Stone, 29 Feb. 2024
The mental toughness of Walther’s girls was the difference in the end as the Eagles never filched.
—Timothy Dashiell, Baltimore Sun, 1 Feb. 2024
The ability of corporate directors to hang on to their seats as if with prehensile behinds (to filch Orwell’s turn of phrase) underscores the uselessness of corporate boards.
—Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 20 Dec. 2023
So the first thing to note is that if the charming stranger in this story had filched the woman’s cash or credit cards or phone, no one would have blinked.
—Amy X. Wang, New York Times, 26 Sep. 2023
See All Example Sentences for filch
Cite this Entry
“Filch.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/filch. Accessed 19 Jun. 2025.
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