Etymograph

English

steal

Steal comes from Middle English stelen, from Old English stelan, from Proto-West Germanic *stelan, from Proto-Germanic *stelaną.

  1. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*stelaną‘to steal’reconstructed
  2. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*stelan‘to steal’reconstructed
  3. Old Englishc. 450–1150stelan‘to steal’
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500stelen‘to steal’
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1596steal

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed

Lineage

  1. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*stelaną‘to steal’reconstructed
  2. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*stelan‘to steal’reconstructed
  3. Old Englishc. 450–1150stelan‘to steal’
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500stelen‘to steal’
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1596steal

Earliest quotation: 1596, Edmund Spenser: “They could insinuate and steal themselves under the same…”

The story

For the meaning development compare with Russian красть (krastʹ, “to steal”) and Russian кра́сться (krástʹsja, “to stalk, to prowl, to slink”). Proposed etymologies beyond Germanic are numerous and include

Linked words

through Proto-Germanic *stelaną ‘to steal’

stolen, 1 more

Today it means

verb To take illegally, or without the owner's permission, something owned by someone else without intending to return it.

Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.

Etymograph / Proto-Germanic *stelaną / steal

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