pickpurse

See also: pick-purse

English

Alternative forms

• pick-purse

Etymology

From Middle English pikepurse, pykeporse, equivalent to pick +‎ purse.

Noun

pickpurse (plural pickpurses)

1. One who steals purses, or money from purses.
   • 1548 January 18, Hugh Latimer, Sermon of the Plough‎^[1], quoted in Sermons by Hugh Latimer, Cambridge University Press, published 1884, page 71:

     Down with Christ's cross, up with purgatory pickpurse, up with him, the popish purgatory, I mean.

   • 1602, William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor, act 1, scene 1:

     No, it is false, if it is a pickpurse.

Synonyms

• See Thesaurus:pickpocket

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “pickpurse”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Anagrams

• pickers-up