shoplift

/ˈʃɒplɪft/

shoplift verb: to steal something from a shop or store during business hours, usually by means of hiding merchandise.

Verb

shoplift (third-person singular simple present shoplifts, present participle shoplifting, simple past and past participle shoplifted)

(transitive) To steal something from a shop or store during business hours, usually by means of hiding merchandise.
- She taught Maddy to sing in Portuguese, to shoplift mascara, to play a drinking game called Spoons2004 May 17, Andrew Sean Greer, The New Yorker
- Week after week, racist posts appear on Thee Rant, a blog for current or former New York City police officers: African Americans are called “apes;” a retired officer says one of the blessings of retirement is not having to work the Puerto Rican Day parade, with its “old obese tatted up women...2015 April 19, Joaquin Sapien, “"The worst elements of the department": New York cop blog is home to some of the most vile racism on the Internet”, in Salon
(intransitive) To steal from shops / stores during trading hours.
- Once, before we had juvenile court here, I made the mistake of putting on probation a boy who had shoplifted, a boy of good family. That boy later shot a man.1938 April, William Peery, “Thank Rotary!”, in The Rotarian, page 52
- Thus, the teacher shook down the kids, the big kids shook down the little kids, the little kids shoplifted to get money, etc., etc.1969 October, Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, Mechanisms for Exploiting the Black Community, Negro Digest, 22

shoplift (plural shoplifts)

(obsolete) A shoplifter.
- […] and indeed it seems a Hardſhip in our Laws, that a poor Shoplift ſhou′d be hang′d for breaking in and pilfering a few Goods, […] .1704, John Dunton, The Athenian Oracle, Athenian Society, Volume III, page 67

"Thomas just got arrested for shoplifting." "Well, I'll go to the foot of the stairs!"
His criminal record, such as it was, consisted of one shoplifting offense when he was ten.
Shoplifting is one of the most prevalent crimes and it costs retailers millions of dollars each year.

Verb
third-person singular present	shoplifts
present participle	shoplifting
past participle	shoplifted
past	shoplifted
alternative form	shop-lift
Noun
plural	shoplifts

From shop + lift (“to steal”), after shoplifting, shoplifter, and shoplift (noun).

From shop + lift (“thief”). Compare slightly earlier shoplifter and the later verb.

What does shoplift mean?: Shoplift means to steal something from a shop or store during business hours, usually by means of hiding merchandise.
What part of speech is shoplift?: Shoplift can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce shoplift?: Shoplift is pronounced /ˈʃɒplɪft/.
What is the past tense of shoplift?: The past tense of shoplift is shoplifted.

Adapted from Wiktionary: shoplift (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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-shoplift.wav.

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