Words / P / General

purloin

verb/pɜːˈlɔɪn/

C2CEFR level
80/100Rarity: very rare
FormalRegister

To steal something, especially in a stealthy or petty manner.

A clerk had been quietly purloining stationery for years.

Similar: steal, pilfer, filch

Origin: From Anglo-French purloigner (to put far off, remove).

Topic: theft in General English

Rarity runs from 0 (a word everyone knows) to 100 (almost never seen outside specialist or literary writing). Level is the word's real difficulty on the CEFR scale, from A1 to C2.

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