shop stealer

noun

A shoplifter.

“If you suspect a shop stealer, pay this person a lot of attention.”

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Meanings

nounshop stealer (plural shop stealers)

plural shop stealers · alternative shopstealer · alternative shop-stealer

  1. AustraliaA shoplifter.

    If you suspect a shop stealer, pay this person a lot of attention.

    3 more examples

    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.

    2008, William Wilkie, The Home Psychiatrist, page 379

Synonyms & antonyms

Also see
shoplifter

Origin

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.

Full word history & related roots →

Translations

Chinese 入店行窃
  • 入店行窃 (ru4.dian4.xing2.qie4)shoplifter
Finnish myymälävaras
  • myymälävarasshoplifter
Polish złodziej sklepowy, złodziejka sklepowa
  • złodziej sklepowyshoplifter
  • złodziejka sklepowashoplifter
Cite this entry
APA

shop stealer. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/shop%20stealer

MLA

“shop stealer.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/shop%20stealer. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “shop stealer,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/shop%20stealer.

Source: shop stealer on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.