shop stealer
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.52 in modern English
16
Scrabble Score
11
Letters
2
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "If you suspect a shop stealer, pay this person a lot of attention."
- "1989, Criminologica Foundation, Criminology & Penology Abstracts, Volume 29, Issues 4-6, page 438, This article reports comparisons of views on shop stealers held by involved professionals […] ."
- "2003, Geoffrey Heard, Gordon Woolf, Success in Store: How to Start Or Buy a Retail Business, Enjoy Running It, The Worsley Press, Australia, page 107, I am writing this the day after I sacked a customer (yes, you can sack a customer — Gordon′s example of a shop stealer is sacking a customer) who is struggling for dollars, but refused to take advice about building his business and accepted the blandishments of a Yellow Pages salesman."
- "It is essential for the compulsive shop-stealer to be charged by police, for the gambler to repay his debts, the violent alcoholic to repair the damaged furniture."
Etymology
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.