larceny

Meanings

1. The crime of taking another person's property without permission, meaning to keep it.
2. An act of theft, especially of something small.

Example sentences

• "He was arrested on a charge of larceny."

  Level C1, Meaning 1

• "Stealing a bicycle can count as petty larceny."

  Level C1, Meaning 2

• "The man was convicted of grand larceny."

  Level C1, Meaning 1

• "The detective explained the difference between larceny and burglary."

  Level C2, Meaning 1

Synonyms and antonyms

Look-alikes and common mistakes

• burglary : Burglary means breaking into a building to commit a crime. Larceny is the taking itself.
• robbery : Robbery involves force or a threat against a person. Larceny does not need either.

Word family and forms

Forms: larcenies

Word partners

Words and phrases that often go with "larceny".

• grand larceny
• petty larceny
• charged with larceny
• commit larceny
• larceny and fraud
• convicted of larceny

Origin

Larceny is a legal word that reached English in the 1400s from Anglo-French larcin, which meant theft. The French word came from Latin latrocinium, meaning robbery, which belongs to a Latin verb that first meant to serve as a paid soldier.

Checked against: Wiktionary, the free dictionary, Dictionary.com.

Usage notes

A legal term, mostly found in court documents and news reports rather than everyday speech.

How to remember it

Think of the word lurk. A person who lurks and then takes what is not theirs is committing larceny.

Test yourself

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