as in pilferage
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as in stealing
to take (something) without right and with an intent to keep
what sort of person would pilfer lunches from the office refrigerator?
Synonyms & Similar Words
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of pilfering
Shirley Li, The Atlantic, 26 Dec. 2025
Earlier this week the company filed a lawsuit against a group of data-scraping companies for allegedly pilfering its content and selling it to Perplexity.
—Reed Albergotti, semafor.com, 24 Oct. 2025
And not the two sets of federal indictments against him for pilfering classified documents and then refusing to return them and for defrauding the United States.
—Jeff Robbins, Oc Register, 20 Oct. 2025
Seven people are locked up for running a theft ring that included pilfering more than $800,000 in smoke detectors from Home Depot stores across Florida — including Miami-Dade, according to Attorney General James Uthmeier.
—Milena Malaver, Miami Herald, 2 Oct. 2025
This, above, was the first of Naeher’s career on her 200th NWSL outing, pilfering a 3-3 draw (from three down, on the road) against Seattle Reign.
—Phil Hay, New York Times, 21 Aug. 2025
Verb
Season 5, meanwhile, has noticeably flattened its ensemble, leaning on simplistic personality traits and pilfering from previous arcs.
—Shirley Li, The Atlantic, 26 Dec. 2025
Earlier this week the company filed a lawsuit against a group of data-scraping companies for allegedly pilfering its content and selling it to Perplexity.
—Reed Albergotti, semafor.com, 24 Oct. 2025
And not the two sets of federal indictments against him for pilfering classified documents and then refusing to return them and for defrauding the United States.
—Jeff Robbins, Oc Register, 20 Oct. 2025
Seven people are locked up for running a theft ring that included pilfering more than $800,000 in smoke detectors from Home Depot stores across Florida — including Miami-Dade, according to Attorney General James Uthmeier.
—Milena Malaver, Miami Herald, 2 Oct. 2025
This, above, was the first of Naeher’s career on her 200th NWSL outing, pilfering a 3-3 draw (from three down, on the road) against Seattle Reign.
—Phil Hay, New York Times, 21 Aug. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for pilfering
Verb
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According to her arrest affidavit, after stealing the truck and being stopped, Giza struck two occupied police vehicles and accelerated toward uniformed officers on foot.—
Joan Murray,
CBS News,
3 Mar. 2026
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Others are stealing real PTINs from preparers and filing fraudulent returns using those credentials.—
Ken Colburn,
AZCentral.com,
1 Mar. 2026
Noun
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The law requires that any undocumented immigrant who is charged with or admits having committed burglary, shoplifting, assault of a law enforcement officer or any serious felonies be detained.—
Anna Heqimi,
Hartford Courant,
7 Mar. 2026
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For a certain subset of the city’s wealthy-ish, a little shoplifting on your grocery run has become about as mundane as jaywalking.—
Nora DeLigter,
Curbed,
6 Mar. 2026
Noun
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The bishop of a Chaldean Catholic church in El Cajon was arrested while trying to leave the country Thursday and jailed on suspicion of embezzlement, the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office said.—
Teri Figueroa,
San Diego Union-Tribune,
6 Mar. 2026
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Kamon was sentenced to more than five years in federal prison, which will run concurrently to a 10-year sentence that Kamon received in Los Angeles federal court for a related embezzlement scheme.—
City News Service,
Daily News,
5 Mar. 2026
Noun
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Armond Langford, 32, is facing multiple charges including robbery, kidnapping, assault, wanton endangerment, fleeing/evading police, burglary and persistent felony offender.—
Caroline Neal,
Louisville Courier Journal,
6 Mar. 2026
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Bivolaru, 73, was arrested in Paris in 2023 and now faces charges in France, including human trafficking, kidnapping, and rape.—
Nick Vivarelli,
Variety,
5 Mar. 2026
Noun
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After the first season found Sam Nelson (Idris Elba) unwittingly involved in the hijacking of a plane, Season 2 of the show takes things underground, as Sam is part of a hijacking of a U-Bahn subway train in Berlin, specifically on the U5 route.—
Barry Levitt,
Time,
4 Mar. 2026
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Perry, 33, was charged with murder during the commission of a forcible felony and vehicular hijacking.—
Shardaa Gray,
CBS News,
25 Feb. 2026
Noun
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An intimate doc-feature take on renowned Panamanian anthropologist Reina Torres de Araúz (1932-82), who battled the plundering of artifacts from pre-1492 tombs, told from th POV of a soon who lost her mother too soon.—
John Hopewell,
Variety,
9 Mar. 2026
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ByteDance’s statement follows the Chinese tech giant receiving cease and desist letters from Disney and Paramount, calling for an immediate halt to IP plundering.—
Jake Kanter,
Deadline,
16 Feb. 2026
Noun
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There is a direct line of misappropriation from the theory of natural selection to the eugenics of Nazism and Jim Crow.—
Charles Finch,
The Atlantic,
24 Feb. 2026
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Prosecutors charged Westbrook for one count of misappropriation, three counts of grand theft, one count of presenting a false invoice for payment and four counts of filing false California tax returns.—
Tim Fang,
CBS News,
23 Feb. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Pilfering.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/pilfering. Accessed 10 Mar. 2026.
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