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Shop-lifting

is secretly purloining goods from a shop. Dekker speaks of the lifting-law—i.e. the law against theft. (Gothic, hlifan, to steal; hliflus, a thief; Latin, levo, to disburden.)

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.