thieves
/θiːvz/
thieves is the plural of thief.
thieves is the third-person singular simple present indicative of thieve.
Meaning of thief
Noun
thief (plural thieves)
- One who carries out a theft.
- water-thieves and land-thievesc. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
- One who steals another person's property, especially by stealth and without using force or violence.
- Take heed to false harlots, and more, ye wot what. / If noise ye heare, / Looke all be cleare: / Least drabs doe noie thee, / And theeues destroie thee.1878, Thomas Tusser, “74. A Digression.”, in Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie. […], London: Published for the English Dialect Society by Trübner & Co., […], →OCLC; republished as W[illiam]...
- A waster in the snuff of a candle.
- But hear you, my Worthy Brethren: do not you, where you see a thief in the candle, call presently for an extinguisher[…]1640, Joseph Hall, Divine Light
Meaning of thieve
Verb
thieve (third-person singular simple present thieves, present participle thieving, simple past and past participle thieved)
- To commit theft.
Phrases with thieves
Words that rhyme with thieves
Questions about thieves
- What is thieves the plural of?
- Thieves is the plural of thief.
- How do you pronounce thieves?
- Thieves is pronounced /θiːvz/.
Words near thieves in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: thieves (page history and authors); thief (page history and authors); thieve (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-thieves.ogg.
Cite this entry: “thieves.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/thieves. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.