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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
filch
verb
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Peters filched thousands of coins from the city's parking meters.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ But I'd be grateful for anything - even some idea of the scale of the funds they've been filching.
▪ He filched them from my wardrobe when I kicked him out.
▪ He often brought her scraps he had filched from the instructors' table.
▪ I am sure in the dim and distant past it had been filched from the wall.
▪ Like the time she'd found Will Pegg's pockets full of iron nails he'd filched from Samson.
▪ She is there in the honesty of her perceptions, which are not secondhand, not filched from others.
▪ Some wag had already filched a target and pinned it on Sylvester's unknowing back.
▪ Where and how he managed to filch these secret texts will probably always remain a mystery.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Filch

Filch \Filch\ (f[i^]lch), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Filched (f[i^]lcht); p. pr. & vb. n. Filching.] [Cf. AS. feolan to stick to, OHG. felhan, felahan, to hide, Icel. fela, Goth. filhan to hide, bury, Prov. E. feal to hide slyly, OE. felen.] To steal or take privily (commonly, that which is of little value); to pilfer.

Fain would they filch that little food away.
--Dryden.

But he that filches from me my good name, Robs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed.
--Shak.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
filch

"steal," especially in a small, sly way, 1560s, slang, perhaps from c.1300 filchen "to snatch, take as booty," which is of unknown origin. Liberman says filch probably is from German filzen "comb through." Related: Filched; filching.

Wiktionary
filch

vb. (context transitive English) To steal, to illegally take possession of.

WordNet
filch

v. make off with belongings of others [syn: pilfer, cabbage, purloin, pinch, abstract, snarf, swipe, hook, sneak, nobble, lift]

Usage examples of "filch".

If Asey Mayo had found them strewn like autumn leaves around the roads, why then someone else had filched them and done the strewing, not them!

Aldus would not have minded so much the filching of the text, but when the unscrupulous printers ventured to copy his types and his original style of typography, and sold their counterfeit copies as the product of the Aldine Press, his indignation knew no bounds.

But tell me, dear coz, what shall we do next, when we have driven this bastard Henry from the kingdom which he hath filched?

France filched Italian joinery in the Renaissance, Flemish marquetry in the seventeenth century, English mahogany styles in the eighteenth and so on.

He was even a little awed by her silent force of will, and at last he had to ask her humbly for a savoury dish which her mother had taught her to make--a dish he always ate upon the birthday of Mahomet Ali, who had done him the honour to flog him with his own kourbash for filching the rations of his Arab charger.

Enjoying the fact that they could speak normally again, they made their way along the deserted lamp-lit corridors back to the common room, arguing w hether or not Filch and Madam Pince were secretly in love with each other.

Entrance Hall, they found Madam Pince standing beside Filch, she in a thick black veil that fell to her knees, he in an ancient black suit and tie reeking of mothbails.

I offer thee, my friend, for as a rule Zabastes is my only auditor,--but I would swear thou art no plagiarist, and wouldst not dishonor thine own intelligence so far as to filch pearls of fancy from another minstrel!

In the past of unregulated private ownership the filching of portable objects and raids upon unguarded possessions were always going on.

Nentres of Garlot am I, and I come To fight with thee if thou wilt league with me Against the wittol that has filched the crown Of England, backed by scurvy sorcery.

Spalding and Lynch, who had come on from Brindisi one train in advance of us, and here Martin Sullivan, who had playfully filched the horn of a guard while en route, was taken into custody by half a score of gendarmes.

There were some Etruscan cups and vases filched from the tombs of Cerveteri, and there was some frank neopagan statuary by Canova.

Stolen pearls, or snides, were filched by divers and crews and sold to known snide buyers or anyone prepared to resell them at a profit.

Of course your absence has meant he is enjoying a high time of it in the law courts, but young Caesar always manages to give him a fright, and often filches his laurels.

Sergei Forward is a cheap no-hoper who thought he could filch his way to medical fame by cadging my discovery.