Etymology

purloin

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Today it means: To take the property of another, often in breach of trust; to appropriate wrongfully; to steal. Full definition →

Middle English purloynen ← Anglo-Norman purloigner ← Old French porloignier
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The story

  1. Old French · derived fromporloignier
  2. Anglo-Norman · derived frompurloigner“to put far away”
  3. Middle English · inherited frompurloynen“to remove”
  4. English todaypurloin

From Middle English purloynen (“to remove”), borrowed from Anglo-Norman purloigner (“to put far away”), one of the variants of Old French porloignier. Doublet of prolong.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.