shoplifting

shoplifting noun: the action of stealing goods from a shop, store or other place of business. Also the present participle and gerund of shoplift.

Noun

shoplifting (countable and uncountable, plural shopliftings)

(uncountable) The action of stealing goods from a shop, store or other place of business.
- […]William Grove for robbing his Master of twenty-sive Guineas ; and Catharine Knox for Shoplifting.1724, The Chronological Diary For the Year 1724, page 45
- Yesterday Afternoon a Woman well dreſs'd, was detected at Mr. Flint′s, a Haberdasher on London-Bridge, in Shoplifting, and on examining her, there were found on her ſome Goods belonging to Mr. Kennet, a Haberdasher at the ſame Place.1757 December 22, The London Chronicle, Volume II: June 30 - December 31, page 594
Synonyms:

retail theft
(countable) A theft from a shop during trading hours.
- In high school, he bleached his hair and began a series of shopliftings and bicycle thefts.2000, Elmer H Johnson, Carol Johnson, Linking Community and Corrections in Japan, page 180
- And we hardly even consider the countless robberies, shopliftings, burglaries, carjackings, kidnappings, stalkings, intimidations and harassments.2004, “An American”, in Arlington′s Blood, iUniverse, page 82
Synonyms:

shoplift

Also used as

shoplifting is also the present participle and gerund of shoplift.

shoplifting meaning in Tamil and Arabic

shoplifting in Tamil

கடையில் திருடுதல்

shoplifting in Arabic

action of the verb to shoplift: سَرَقَةُ السِلَعَ مِنَ الـمَتَاجِر saraqatu s-silaʕa mina l-matājir

Examples of shoplifting in a sentence

Shoplifting is one of the most prevalent crimes and it costs retailers millions of dollars each year.2006, Gennaro F. Vito, Jeffrey R. Maahs, Ronald M. Holmes, Criminology: Theory, Research, And Policy, page 337:
On my first day on the watch after leaving the shoplifting squad I paraded on earlies but had completely forgotten to take my ear ring off.2007, Paul W. Browning, The Good Guys Wear Blue, page 193:
When we described the 80-20 rule, we mentioned that 5% of the stores in Danvers, Massachusetts, accounted for 50% of the reported shopliftings.2012, Lawrence Fennelly, Handbook of Loss Prevention and Crime Prevention, 5th edition, page 171:

Synonyms of shoplifting

Forms of shoplifting

plural	shopliftings

Origin of shoplifting

By surface analysis, shoplift + -ing. The noun sense (from 1690) predates the verb.

Words formed from shoplifting

Questions about shoplifting

What does shoplifting mean?: Shoplifting means the action of stealing goods from a shop, store or other place of business.
What is shoplifting in Tamil?: Shoplifting in Tamil is கடையில் திருடுதல். See Shoplifting meaning in Tamil.
How do you use shoplifting in a sentence?: Shoplifting is one of the most prevalent crimes and it costs retailers millions of dollars each year.
What part of speech is shoplifting?: Shoplifting is a noun.
What is the plural of shoplifting?: The plural of shoplifting is shopliftings.

Words near shoplifting in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: shoplifting (page history and authors); shoplifting (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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-shoplifting.wav.

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