Word of the Day for Thursday, August 18, 2011
purloin \per-LOIN\, verb:
To take dishonestly; steal.
In a death defying act, the B.O. will now attempt to purloin all American liberties!
--Spy Maker, JSA's Blog
Annatoo concluded that Samoa was not wholly to be enslaved; and Samoa thought best to wink at Annatoo's foibles, and let her purloin when she pleased.-- Herman Melville, Mardi, and a Voyage Thither
To climb a wall, to break a branch, to purloin apples, is a mischievous trick in a child; for a man it is a misdemeanor; for a convict it is a crime.-- Victor Hugo, Les misérables: Volume 1
Purloin has an ancestor in the Old French porloigner, "to put off, delay," but the sense of "to steal" is an English addition.
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