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On May 24, 1725 the most notorious and controversial thief-taker in English history lost his life to the hangman’s noose at Tyburn. 1 Citizens, jurors, magistrates, and priests had thought Jonathan Wild’s execution to be a foregone conclusion; however, the “Thief-taker General”
Mar 22, 2024 · thief. (n.) Old English þeof "one who takes property from another by stealth; a robber," from Proto-Germanic *theuba- (source also of Old Frisian thiaf, Old Saxon thiof, Middle Dutch and Dutch dief, Old High German diob, German dieb, Old Norse þiofr, Gothic þiufs), a word of uncertain origin.
What does the noun thief mean? There are 11 meanings listed in OED's entry for the noun thief , two of which are labelled obsolete. See ‘Meaning & use’ for definitions, usage, and quotation evidence.
Apr 3, 2013 · The main Germanic word for “thief” is old. Gothic had þiufs (spelled þiubs ), and with Gothic we are in the fourth century CE. The other related languages had similar forms, none of which resembles any non-Germanic word designating a person who steals.
Knowledge about the history and structure of our words – both the core and the learned vocabulary – is a valuable asset. The vocabulary of English is not an unchanging list of words.
The Good Thief a traditional name for the penitent thief, St Dismas. set a thief to catch a thief proverbial saying, mid 17th century; in an epigram the Greek poet and scholar Callimachus ( c. 305– c. 240 bc) has, ‘Being a thief myself I recognized the tracks of a thief.’.
OED's earliest evidence for thief is from 1836, in the writing of William Simms, poet, novelist, and historian. It is also recorded as a noun from the Old English period (pre-1150). thief is formed within English, by derivation.
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