Word.ws English Dictionary

thief in law

thief in law noun: a criminal who is respected, has authority and a high ranking status within the criminal underworld in the old Soviet Union, Russia and the republics that formed the former Soviet Union.

Noun

thief in law (plural thieves in law)

  1. A criminal who is respected, has authority and a high ranking status within the criminal underworld in the old Soviet Union, Russia and the republics that formed the former Soviet Union.

Forms of thief in law

pluralthieves in law

Origin of thief in law

Calque of Russian вор в зако́не (vor v zakóne).

Questions about thief in law

What does thief in law mean?
Thief in law means a criminal who is respected, has authority and a high ranking status within the criminal underworld in the old Soviet Union, Russia and the republics that formed the former Soviet Union.
What part of speech is thief in law?
Thief in law is a noun.
What is the plural of thief in law?
The plural of thief in law is thieves in law.

Words near thief in law in the dictionary

  1. Thiede
  2. Thiedes
  3. thief
  4. thief ant
  5. thief ants
  6. thief in law
  7. thief in the night
  8. thief knot
  9. thief knots
  10. thief palm
  11. Thief River Falls

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: thief in law (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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