- 1
To shoplift is to take something from a shop without paying for it — hiding it in a bag, under clothes, or walking out as if you had paid. It is a crime, even when the thing is small. News, police, and shops use the word; it is the ordinary English for this kind of stealing, not a slang joke. You shoplift a thing, or you shoplift from a shop. The verb looks like shop + lift, and lift here is an old, quiet way to say steal. Though actually, English made this verb later, by cutting it out of the older person-word shoplifter. The crime-name shoplifting is older still: people were already using it around 1690. So the family grew backwards — the person and the crime-name first, the verb after.
順手牽羊
組成The verb was cut out of the older word shoplifter (shop + lifter). That kind of later verb is called a back-formation.
同家族的字
- shopthe place the stealing happens
- shoplifterthe person-word this verb was cut from
- shopliftingthe crime-name; older than this verb
原始詞典資料3 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
shopliftnoun/ˈʃɒplɪft/
- 1
obsoleteA shoplifter.
- 1704, John Dunton, The Athenian Oracle, Athenian Society, Volume III, page 67, […] and indeed it seems a Hardſhip in our Laws, that a poor Shoplift ſhou′d be hang′d for breaking in and pilfering a few Goods, […] .
shopliftverb/ˈʃɒplɪft/
- 1
To steal something from a shop or store during business hours, usually by means of hiding merchandise.
- She taught Maddy to sing in Portuguese, to shoplift mascara, to play a drinking game called Spoons
- Week after week, racist posts appear on Thee Rant, a blog for current or former New York City police officers: African Americans are called “apes;” a retired officer says one of the blessings of retirement is not having to work the Puerto Rican Day parade, with its “old obese tatted up women stuffed into outfits that they purchased or shoplifted at the local Kmart store; […]
- 2
To steal from shops / stores during trading hours.
- Once, before we had juvenile court here, I made the mistake of putting on probation a boy who had shoplifted, a boy of good family. That boy later shot a man.
- 1969 October, Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, Mechanisms for Exploiting the Black Community, Negro Digest, 22, Thus, the teacher shook down the kids, the big kids shook down the little kids, the little kids shoplifted to get money, etc., etc.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。