Word of the Day

: July 30, 2023

filch

verb FILCH

What It Means

To filch something is to secretly or casually steal it. The word filch also usually, though not always, implies that what has been stolen is small or of little monetary value.

// I couldn’t help but chuckle when I woke up to find my four-year-old daughter filching a cookie from the plate on the kitchen counter.

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filch in Context

“Distillery employees filched more than $100,000 of the most famous name in rare bourbon, Pappy Van Winkle, to resell, a 2013 caper that has been dubbed ‘Pappygate.’” — Justin Jouvenal, The Washington Post, 20 Sept. 2022

Did You Know?

The award-winning 2019 video game Untitled Goose Game, in which players control the titular (or “un-titular”?) waterfowl through several levels of light and family-friendly mayhem, serves as an excellent primer on the meaning of filch. In fact, many of the game’s objectives involve waddling furtively around a quaint little scene, such as a garden, and trying to avoid detection by humans while you pilfer, say, a pumpkin or a woolen hat. To filch is to steal something (usually, though not always, a small or relatively unimportant something) in secret. So why not just use steal? There’s often a distinct twang of humor or mischievousness in filch that’s not inherent in plain old steal, and that reflects a casualness or nonchalance on the part of the silly goose—whether literal or figurative—snatching the pie from the windowsill.