stehlen

From Old High German stelan, from Proto-West Germanic *stelan, Proto-Germanic *stelaną. Compare Icelandic stela, Low German stehlen, Dutch stelen, English steal, Danish stjæle.

• IPA^(key): /ˈʃteːlən/

• Audio:

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• Audio:

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• Hyphenation: steh‧len
• Homophone: Stelen

stehlen (class 4 strong, third-person singular present stiehlt, past tense stahl, past participle gestohlen, past subjunctive stähle or stöhle, auxiliary haben)

1. (transitive or intransitive) to steal [with accusative ‘something’ and dative ‘from someone’]

   Er hat mir ein Buch gestohlen. ― He stole a book from me.

2. (reflexive) to skulk, to move secretly

• rauben
• entwenden
• klauen
• abstauben
• stibitzen
• mitgehen lassen
• fladern
• mopsen
• lange Finger machen

• bestehlen
• davonstehlen

• verstohlen

• → Esperanto: ŝteli

• “stehlen” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache
• “stehlen” in Uni Leipzig: Wortschatz-Lexikon
• “stehlen” in Duden online
• “stehlen” in OpenThesaurus.de

From Old Saxon stelan, from Proto-West Germanic *stelan.

stehlen (third-person singular simple present stehlt, past tense stohl, past participle stahlen, auxiliary verb hebben)

1. (transitive or intransitive) to steal
2. (reflexive) to skulk, to move secretly

As in High German, the person from whom the thing is stolen is given in the oblique case. Thus, He hett mi en Book stahlen means: “He stole a book from me.” This is quite contrary to English usage, where “He stole me a book” would be the equivalent of Low German: He hett en Book för mi stahlen.

• roven