as in thieves
a person who steals money and other things from people's pockets and purses
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Example Sentences
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of pickpockets This anti-theft sling bag has lockable zippers, a hidden back pocket, and RFID-blocking technology—all of which will deter potential pickpockets while docked at each port. —
Anna Popp, Travel + Leisure, 14 Apr. 2026 And when the 25,000 Social Security checks worth $8 million are delivered each month, police say 80 pickpockets arrive to prey on the elderly. —Miami Herald Archives, Miami Herald, 27 Feb. 2026 Rafiq suspected that the anxiety suffusing the market had made any pickpockets unlikely to be scoping out potential shoppers. —Literary Hub, 8 Jan. 2026
Anna Popp, Travel + Leisure, 14 Apr. 2026 And when the 25,000 Social Security checks worth $8 million are delivered each month, police say 80 pickpockets arrive to prey on the elderly. —Miami Herald Archives, Miami Herald, 27 Feb. 2026 Rafiq suspected that the anxiety suffusing the market had made any pickpockets unlikely to be scoping out potential shoppers. —Literary Hub, 8 Jan. 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for pickpockets
Noun
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The grandkids — cousins, and thick as thieves — love running around indoors and out.— Jeanne Phillips, Mercury News, 19 Apr. 2026
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The owners of a beloved Monrovia burger joint are asking for help after thieves broke into their home and stole their entire life savings of $140,000.— Nicole Comstock, CBS News, 18 Apr. 2026
Noun
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But as the crisis hurtles towards breaking point, the story rewinds, with viewers pulled inside the bank to relive the same events through the eyes of the robbers and their hostages.— Alex Ritman, Variety, 7 Apr. 2026
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Yet key dramatic moments—a shooting, the robbers’ realization that the bank vault is empty—occurred in a hallway invisible to the audience, described secondhand.— Emily Nussbaum, New Yorker, 2 Apr. 2026
Noun
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The decade ended tumultuously, with the Osmond family’s fortune drained by a series of swindlers and grifters.— Jon Blistein, Rolling Stone, 21 Apr. 2026
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This scam, according to Kent, could be proliferated with the use of AI, which can allow swindlers to enroll in many different college programs at once.— Peter D'Abrosca, FOXNews.com, 21 Jan. 2026
Noun
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The characters were based on a real family of bookmakers and racketeers who once lived in England.— Sarah Moore, Freep.com, 5 Mar. 2026
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When Ferrara was starting out, private investment in low-budget films was spurred by tax loopholes, a way for doctors, dentists, and racketeers to get rid of extra cash that would otherwise wind up in Uncle Sam’s grubby mitts.— Nick Pinkerton, Harpers Magazine, 24 Oct. 2025
Noun
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Winschel said the vandals focused on stripping copper wire from electrical fixtures.— Terra Sullivan, CBS News, 13 Apr. 2026
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Failing to light the gasoline with a long gauze fuse, the vandals tossed a kerosene torch through a porch window, the story stated.— Cam'ron Hardy, Chicago Tribune, 3 Apr. 2026
Noun
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Violent gangsters ran fentanyl and human smuggling over the Rio Grande.— Ioan Grillo, Time, 15 Apr. 2026
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They get captured by Hungarian gangsters and have to fight (and kill) their way out of an inn run by a shady former dance prodigy (Uma Thurman).— Brian Truitt, USA Today, 4 Apr. 2026
Noun
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The first pictures McCullin took were of hoodlums and down-and-outs, subjects that reflected his own hardscrabble background.— Andrew Pulver, Air Mail, 31 Jan. 2026
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Aleah and Grasso end up saving Lizzie’s ass and capturing the hoodlums.— Grace Byron, Vulture, 22 Sep. 2025
Noun
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In fact, the GTW ruffians have to give the Big Honey some props for his relative restraint in the heat of the moment.— Sean Keeler, Denver Post, 28 Feb. 2026
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Ciri, unbeknowest to her surrogate ma and pa, is free of her Nilfgaardian captors and on the run with a band of adolescent ruffians, and perhaps figuring out how to take care of herself.— Kelly Lawler, USA Today, 30 Oct. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Pickpockets.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.grautoblog.com/thesaurus/pickpockets. Accessed 24 Apr. 2026.
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