stealing

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of steal.

   The cat kept stealing food off the kitchen counter.

   Stealing from your employer can lead to immediate dismissal.

   Note

   The -ing form carries every sense of the verb, including the quiet ones: stealing across the lawn, stealing a glance, stealing the show. As a gerund it still takes a direct object (stealing food off the counter). Once it takes "the" or "of," as in "the stealing of secrets," it has become the noun for theft, which also accepts adjectives such as petty.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act of taking another person's property without permission; theft.

   Years of petty stealing finally caught up with the clerk.

   The company installed cameras to discourage stealing among the warehouse staff.

   Similartheft, thieving, pilfering, larceny, robbery

3. 3
   nounarchaiccountable or uncountableplural

   Property that has been taken by theft; the stolen goods themselves.

   The constable recovered much of the stealing from the abandoned cart.

   The politicaster is looking for small opportunities – for such pickings and stealings as a careless public may leave for those of his kind. The great politician is looking for great opportunities.

   2004, Samuel McChord Crothers, “In Praise of Politicians”

   Note

   An archaic use that names what was taken rather than the act of taking it, and it appears chiefly in the plural. Samuel McChord Crothers, in "In Praise of Politicians," pairs it with pickings: "such pickings and stealings as a careless public may leave." That doublet is its natural setting. In ordinary prose, say stolen goods instead, since a modern reader will hear the singular as the act of theft.

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