/filch/

 

/filch/

 

Verb.

 

-) Etymology: fɪlʃ.

 

-) Etymology: of uncertain origin. 

 

-) Preterite tense: filched. Preterite participle: filched.

 

-) Present participle: filching.

 

-) It is dated from the end of 1500.

Transitively: 1. To take away furtively (portable property belonging to another), without intention of giving it back.

 

-) Synonyms of filch: to pilfer, to steal.

 

-) Antonyms of filch: to purchase, buy.

 

-) Translation: dérober, in French; robar, in Spanish; rubare, in Italian.

[…] we remember an instance related to us, of a pile of copper which had been coined into ten kopeck pieces, which was locked in a strong room […] It was discovered that a hole had been bored through the flooring, and that from an office situated below it, the officers had filched the pieces, pulling them through by a pole and wire.

Charles Henningsen… Revelations of Russia 1845

[…] a fine silk shawl, which she had purchased or filched, no one knowing how she came into possession of it…

Anne Marsh- Caldwell… Castle Avon 1852

I had to check the incursions of lawless desperadoes […], who periodically swooped down on my scattered villages, and harried the herds, stole the grain, or filched the forest products of my domain.

James Inglis… Tent life 1888

I suppose Harry Kenton could scarcely have contained himself had he known it was my sister who filched that map from the Curtis house in Richmond and that it was to me she gave it.

Joseph Altsheler… The Tree of Appomattox 1916

Bring me my pistol, the one that the Indian filched from me while I slept.

Joseph Altsheler… The Masters of the Peaks 1918

-) In participle:

 

[Merton] lighted the filched cigar.

Harry Wilson… Merton of the Movies 1919

Crimes were committed, sheep filched, and drovers robbed and beaten…

Robert Stevenson… Memories and Portraits 1887

2. Rare: to deprive (a person) of something by force and without intention of giving it back; to rob.

 

[…] no man is in danger of either being filched of his purse, or if he chanced to lose it by accident, of not regaining it.

William Howitt… The rural life of England 1862

3. Metaphor: to extort (something) from someone.

 

[…] if he had not filched your secrets from you…

Mary Braddon… Charlotte’s Inheritance 1868

4. Improper use: to usurp.

 

She exacted from him, however, the full restitution of such domains and fortresses as he had filched from the crown and from the city of Seville, on condition of similar concessions by his rival, the duke of Medina Sidonia.

William Prescott… History… Ferdinand… 1839

At your solicitation, the boundaries of your property were changed, and large slips of land filched from another…

William Ainsworth… The Lancashire Witches 1848

I have seen a very impassionate effusion of poetry that he has addressed to her, filched from some album or other, for I recollect having seen the lines somewhere before.

Emma Nevitte… Retribution 1849

Some of them stole my writings, and some filched my discoveries.

Charles Lever… One of them 1861

-) Words derived from the verb FILCH: filcher, filchery, filching.