Word.ws English Dictionary

second-story man

second-story man noun: a burglar, especially one who performs a legitimate service at a residence and returns later to perform the theft, usually by way of an unconventional access point above ground level that was identified in the initial visit.

Noun

second-story man (plural second-story men)

  1. (US, slang) A burglar, especially one who performs a legitimate service at a residence and returns later to perform the theft, usually by way of an unconventional access point above ground level that was identified in the initial visit.
    • For a brief period in Warsaw in the 1890s, Kornblum had been forced into a life of crime, as a second-story man, and the prospect of prizing the Golem out of its current home, unsuspected, awoke wicked old memories of gaslight and stolen gems.2000 September 19, Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, New York, N.Y.: Random House, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 16
    • They were appalled by his idea of making a spy service out of a scattershot collection of Wall Street brokers, Ivy League eggheads, soldiers of fortune, ad men, news men, stunt men, second-story men, and con men.2007, Tim Weiner, Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA, New York, N.Y.: Doubleday, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 4
    Synonyms:
    cat burglar

Synonyms of second-story man

Forms of second-story man

pluralsecond-story men
alternative formsecond-storey man

Questions about second-story man

What does second-story man mean?
Second-story man means a burglar, especially one who performs a legitimate service at a residence and returns later to perform the theft, usually by way of an unconventional access point above ground level that was identified in the initial visit.
What part of speech is second-story man?
Second-story man is a noun.
What is the plural of second-story man?
The plural of second-story man is second-story men.

Words near second-story man in the dictionary

  1. second-sighted
  2. second-storey man
  3. second-storey men
  4. second-storey worker
  5. second-storey workers
  6. second-story man
  7. second-story men
  8. second-string
  9. second-stringer
  10. second-stringers
  11. second-system effect

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: second-story man (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.

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