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larceny

noun

Simple meaning

The unlawful taking of personal property as an try to deprive the legal owner of it permanently.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

lahrsuhnee

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈlɑɹsəni

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. lawuncountable

    The unlawful taking of personal property as an attempt to deprive the legal owner of it permanently.

  2. lawcountable

    An individual instance of such a taking.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C2 · Proficient (estimated)
Frequency
Uncommon

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: The unlawful taking of personal property as an attempt to deprive the legal owner of it permanently.

Used this way, larceny is a specialist word with a faintly unfavourable edge. This is a legal use: the wording is institutional and carries a defined meaning in law rather than a loose everyday one.

Emotional tone
Slightly negative
Formality
Specialist/technical
Intensity
Moderate
How common
Specialized
Connotation
Critical or judgemental
Usage feel
Clinical and detached

Where it naturally appears

  • Law/legal
  • Government/politics
  • Academic writing

Usage note

In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Unlawful / taking

petty larcenylarceny actpersonal larceny

Other combinations

simple larcenycommit larceny

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • grand larcenynounCompound term

    Larceny of property having a value greater than some amount (the amount varies by locale).

  • petit larcenynounCompound term

    Larceny of property having a value less than some amount (the amount varies by locale).

  • petty larcenynounCompound term

    Larceny of property having a value less than some amount (the amount varies by locale).

Related Words

Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: unlawful taking of personal property as an attempt to deprive the legal owner of it permanently

theftstealingArchaic

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.