pilfer

Other forms of pilfer

past tense

pilferred·

present participle

pilferring·

third person

pilfers·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about pilfer

What does pilfer mean?

pilfer means "make off with belongings of others".

How many syllables are in pilfer?

pilfer has 2 syllables: pil-fer. The stress falls on "pil". In IPA it is /ˈpɪlfɚ/.

What is another word for pilfer?

Close synonyms include cabbage, purloin, pinch, abstract, snarf. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is pilfer a common word?

pilfer is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.