kleptomaniac

plural kleptomaniacs · alternative cleptomaniac

1. One who steals compulsively.

   The last line, adapted from Coleridge, reminds us that we are never such kleptomaniacs as in our juvenilia. We steal from our masters. We steal from our friends, from our enemies even.

   2001, James Fenton, “Wilfred Owen's Juvenilia” (chapter 2), in The Strength of Poetry, Oxford University Press, published 2003, →ISBN, page 26

   2 more examples

   “A kleptomaniac,” I said. “Which means, if the term is not familiar to you, a chap who flits hither and thither pinching everything he can lay his hands on. [...] And if ever a man needed to be constantly under an eye, it's the above kleptomaniac. [...] He pinches things. Everything that isn't nailed down is grist to his mill.”

   1960, P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves in the Offing, chapter VI and XII

   The dear old room was just as I'd left it, nothing changed, and my first move, of course, was to procure another chair and give the top of the armoire the once-over. It was a set-back to find that the cow-creamer wasn't there. I suppose these kleptomaniacs know a thing or two and don't hide the loot in the obvious place.

   1960, P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves in the Offing, chapter VIII