Thief

How to spell thief

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce thief

What does thief mean?

1. nounA person who steals something, especially secretly and without using force.

Thief in a sentence

• The thief slipped out of the shop with an unpaid jacket under his arm.

• Police arrested a known thief near the jewellery counter.

Where does thief come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends directly from the Old English theof, meaning a person who takes another's property by stealth, and it has been part of the language since the earliest Anglo-Saxon records. It belongs to the native Germanic stock of English, with close cousins in Old Frisian thiaf, Old Saxon thiof, and modern German Dieb, all tracing back to a shared Proto-Germanic root theubaz for one who steals. The spelling preserves the classic 'i before e' pattern that follows most letters other than c, which is exactly why it reads thief rather than theif. The same root gives us 'theft', and the noun keeps an old Germanic habit of softening to a v in the plural, giving us thieves much as 'leaf' becomes 'leaves'. Because the word is so old and so common, its spelling has stayed remarkably stable for over a thousand years.

How the word is built

• thief (from Old English theof: one who steals); a strong noun whose plural shifts to thieves