filch

Etymology

(c. 1630) by Georges de la Tour, from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, New York, USA. The painting depicts a wealthy young man having his fortune read by a gypsy fortune teller (right), while unaware that his coin purse is being filched from his pocket (left) and a medal he is wearing is being cut from its chain (centre).]] From Middle English filchen (“to pilfer, steal”). The further origin of the word is uncertain, but it is likely from or related to Old English fylċian (“to marshal troops”) and Old English ġefylċe (“band of men, army, host”), which would make it also related to folk.

verb

1. (transitive) To illegally take possession of (something, especially items of low value); to pilfer, to steal.
   Hey, someone filched my wallet!
   He [Wolfe] therefore hoped, that every county in the kingdom would, […] meet, and conſult, and expreſt their moſt ſtrenuous diſlike and abhorrence of this ſcheme of deceit, to filch from them their liberties and commerce. 6 September 1785, John Wolfe, The Parliamentary Register: Or, History of the Proceedings and Debates of the House of Commons of Ireland, the Second Session of the Fourth Parliament in the Reign of His Present Majesty; which Met at Dublin on the 20th of January, and Ended the 7th of September, 1785, volume V, Dublin: […] P[atrick] Byrne,[…], and W[illiam] Porter,[…], →OCLC, page 501
   The film [The Kleptomaniac (1905)] begins when a prosperous matron leaves her home to go on a shopping trip to a large department store where she filches several items before she is apprehended by the store detective and escorted to the police station to stand trial before a judge. 2010, Steve Zimmerman, “Hunger”, in Food in the Movies, 2nd edition, Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, page 131
   The farm drivers were often found to be filching from the cars for spare parts or moonlighting with trucks for personal gain. 2015, Cynthia J. Buckley, “Back to the Collective: Production and Consumption on a Siberian Collective Farm”, in Stephen Kotkin, David Wolff, editors, Rediscovering Russia in Asia: Siberia and the Russian Far East, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, New York, N.Y.: Routledge, page 230

noun

1. Something which has been filched or stolen.
   'New Sabbath' is partially a filch from [George Frideric] Handel's beautiful but voluptuous song in Hercules, 'There the brisk sparkling nectar drains.' 6 May 1876, “Kingston”, quoting the Surrey Advertiser, “[Queries:] Profane Hymn Tunes”, in [John] Doran, editor, Notes and Queries: A Medium of Intercommunication for Literary Men, General Readers, etc. (5th series), volume V, number 123, London: Published at the office, 20, Wellington Street, Strand, W.C. by John Francis, →OCLC, page 368, column 1
2. An act of filching; larceny, theft.
   By the appropriation clause, which is here referred to, it was proposed to apply a part of the property of the Irish Church to secular purposes, that is, to work a transfer of property, with an alteration of its uses. Call this as you will, a spoliation, or wise application, it implies a loss to one and a gain to other, of the same property. In the evil sense, it means spoliation, or wrongful deprival, appropriation, or "conveyance" in the sense of a filch. 1860, Lawrence Peel, “To John B[acon] S[awrey] Morritt, Esq., Portland Place, London [letter from Sir Walter Scott]”, in A Sketch of the Life and Character of Sir Robert Peel, London: Longman, Green, Longma, and Roberts, →OCLC, page 173
3. (obsolete) A person who filches; a filcher, a pilferer, a thief.
   A ſimple lad, with a whip in one hand, and the other locked in the arm of a young girl, is ſo loſt in gaping aſtoniſhment, that an adroit branch of the family of the Filches is clearing his pockets of their contents. 1803, William Hogarth, Thomas Cook, engraver, “Southwark Fair”, in Anecdotes of Mr. Hogarth, and Explanatory Descriptions of the Plates of Hogarth Restored. Engraved by Thomas Cook, London: Printed for the engraver, no. 38, Tavistock Street, Covent Garden; and G. and J. Robinson, Paternoster Row, →OCLC, page 2
4. (obsolete) A hooked stick used to filch objects.
   Thus much for their fraternities, names, lodgings, and assemblies, at all which times everyone of them carries a short staff in his hand, which is called a filch, having in the nab, or head, of it, a ferme (that is to say, a hole) into which, upon any piece of service, when he goes a filching, he putteth a hook of iron, with which hook he angles at a window in the dead of night, for shirts, smocks, or any other linen or woollen. And for that reason is the staff called a filch. 1930, Thomas Dekker [?], “O Per Se O (1612)”, in A[rthur] V[alentine] Judges, editor, The Elizabethan Underworld: A Collection of Tudor and Early Stuart Tracts and Ballads Telling of the Lives and Misdoings of Vagabonds, Thieves and Cozeners, and Giving Some Account of the Operation of the Criminal Law, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, →OCLC, page 380; reprinted as The Elizabethan Underworld: A Collection of Tudor and Early Stuart Tracts and Ballads (Key Writings on Subcultures, 1535–1727: Classics from the Underworld; I), London, New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 2002, page 380