Word.ws English Dictionary

pilfer

UK/ˈpɪl.fə//ˈpɪl.fɚ/

pilfer verb: to steal in small quantities, or articles of small value; to practise petty theft.

pilfer: to steal in small quantities, or articles of small value; to practise petty theft
Image: George Henry Hall, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Verb

pilfer (third-person singular simple present pilfers, present participle pilfering, simple past and past participle pilfered)

  1. (ambitransitive) To steal in small quantities, or articles of small value; to practise petty theft.
    • pilfer goods
    • pilfer from a store

pilfer meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

pilfer in Tamil

சோமாறு, கைநீட்டு, கைந்நீட்டு, தட்டு

pilfer in Urdu

چوری کرنا

pilfer in Bengali

ছোটোখাটো চুরি করা

pilfer in Malayalam

pilfer
ചുങ്കം cuṅkaṁ
More languagesFewer languages
pilfer in Kannada
ಕಿರುಕಳವು ಮಾಡು
pilfer in Sanskrit
चोरयति corayati
pilfer in Tagalog
mangupit, kumupit

Examples of pilfer in a sentence

  • The boy tried to pilfer sweets from the shop.
  • Office supplies often get pilfered by employees.
  • The truck carrying 413,793 units of a “new chocolate range”, about 12 tons of chocolate bars, was pilfered while driving through Europe on 26 March, Agence France-Presse reported.2026 March 28, Gloria Oladipo, “Sugar high(st): more than twelve tons of KitKat’s ‘new chocolate range’ stolen in Italy”, in The Guardian...

Forms of pilfer

third-person singular presentpilfers
present participlepilfering
past participlepilfered
pastpilfered
alternative form (obsolete)pilfre

Past tense of pilfer: pilfered

Origin of pilfer

From earlier pilfre, from Middle English pilfre (“booty”), from Old French pelfre (“plunder, booty, spoils”), of unknown origin. Compare pelf.

Words formed from pilfer

Questions about pilfer

What does pilfer mean?
Pilfer means to steal in small quantities, or articles of small value; to practise petty theft.
What is pilfer in Tamil?
Pilfer in Tamil is சோமாறு, கைநீட்டு, கைந்நீட்டு. See Pilfer meaning in Tamil.
How do you use pilfer in a sentence?
The boy tried to pilfer sweets from the shop.
What part of speech is pilfer?
Pilfer is a verb.
How do you pronounce pilfer?
Pilfer is pronounced /ˈpɪl.fə/ (UK).
What is the past tense of pilfer?
The past tense of pilfer is pilfered.

Words near pilfer in the dictionary

  1. pileworks
  2. pileworm
  3. pileworms
  4. pilewort
  5. pileworts
  6. pilfer
  7. pilferable
  8. pilferage
  9. pilferages
  10. pilfered
  11. pilferer

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pilfer (page history and authors); pilfer (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); pilfer (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); pilfer (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ചുങ്കം (Malayalam) (page history and authors); pilfer (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-pilfer.ogg, en-au-pilfer.ogg.

Cite this entry: “pilfer.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pilfer. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.