shop stealer
shop stealer noun: a shoplifter.
Noun
shop stealer (plural shop stealers)
- A shoplifter.
- If you suspect a shop stealer, pay this person a lot of attention.
- This article reports comparisons of views on shop stealers held by involved professionals […] .1989, Criminologica Foundation, Criminology & Penology Abstracts, Volume 29, Issues 4-6, page 438
Forms of shop stealer
| plural | shop stealers |
|---|---|
| alternative form | shopstealer |
| alternative form | shop-stealer |
Origin of shop stealer
Unclear, but ultimately from shoplifter (which predates the verb shoplift). Structurally, shop steal + -er, but perhaps more likely is that both verb and agent noun forms were coined around the same time by alteration of shoplift / shoplifter to carry the nuanced greater emphasis on theft.
Questions about shop stealer
- What does shop stealer mean?
- Shop stealer means a shoplifter.
- What part of speech is shop stealer?
- Shop stealer is a noun.
- What is the plural of shop stealer?
- The plural of shop stealer is shop stealers.
Words near shop stealer in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: shop stealer (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-au-shop stealer.ogg.
Cite this entry: “shop stealer.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shop_stealer. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.