pilfering
noun, verb
pilfering is a noun meaning “The act by which something is pilfered; a petty theft” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled P-I-L-F-E-R-I-N-G and has 3 syllables, and it appears about once in every 6 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of pilfering is pilferings.
What does pilfering mean?
noun
- 1
The act by which something is pilfered; a petty theft.
verb
- 1
present participle and gerund of pilfer
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce pilfering?
Pilfering has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of pilfering
- pilferings plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is pilfering?
Pilfering appears about once in every 6 million words in written English, the 74,122nd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Pilfering in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense petty theft:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.