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To practice theft; to steal.

The practice of stealing; theft; thievishness. Among the Spartans, thievery was a practice morally good and honest. South.

A secret language or conventional slang peculiar to thieves, tramps, and vagabonds; flash.

A short bar used by thieves to wrench doors open. [Written also bettee.] The powerful betty, or the artful picklock. Arbuthnot.

Hence: To seek for game or plunder; to thieve. [R.] B. Jonson.

tation of the crucifixion, consisting of three crosses with the figures of Christ and the thieves, often as large as life, and sometimes surrounded by figures of other personages who were present at the crucifixion.

Vulgar jargon; slang; the secret language spoker by gipsies, thieves. tramps, or beggars.

To carry or take away secretly; to steal; to thieve. [Obs.]

A person given to fraudulent practices; an accomplice of thieves, forgers, etc. [Cant, U.S.] By hook or by crook, in some way or other; by fair means or foul.

nts; vulgarly pretentious; as, flash people; flash men or women; -- applied especially to thieves, gamblers, and prostitutes that dress in a showy way and wear much cheap jewelry. Flash house, a house frequented by flash people, as thieves and whores; hence, a brothel. "A gang of footpads, reveling with their favorite…

up of laborers under one foreman; a squad; as, a gang of sailors; a chain gang; a gang of thieves.

The privilege granted to lords of certain manors to judge thieves taken within the seigniory of such lords. Cowell.

A house; esp., one which is a resort for thieves. [Slang, Eng.]

Commonly; usually. [Obs.] Bp. Fisher. The great thieves of a state are lightly the officers of the crown. B. Jonson.

A low, base fellow; also, a prostitute. [Scot.] Thieves, limmers, and broken men of the Highlands. Sir W. Scott.

Belonging to the seashore or a seaport; along and on the shore. "Longshore thieves." R. Browning.

s. Tennyson. Mob law, law administered by the mob; lynch law. -- Swell mob, well dressed thieves and swindlers, regarded collectively. [Slang] Dickens.

being. Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbor unto him that fell among the thieves Luke x. 36. The gospel allows no such term as "stranger;" makes every man my neighbor. South.

[The hooded clouds] patter their doleful prayers. Longfellow. To patter flash, to talk in thieves' cant. [Slang]

Roguery; thievery. [Obs.] Fielding.