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/

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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
2. (reflexive) to skulk, to move secretly

• The person from whom the thing is stolen is given in the dative case. Thus, Er hat mir ein Buch gestohlen 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 German: Er hat ein Buch für mich gestohlen. The person for whom the thing is stolen must be expressed as an object of "für".
• An exception to this, however, is a reflexive dative, which will have the same sense as in English: Er hat sich ein Buch gestohlen means: “He stole himself a book.” This exception is implied by logic, since one cannot steal from oneself.

• 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.

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