pickpockets

noun

plural of pickpocket
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 Speaking of not losing things, protect your phone from pickpockets with the elegant Maison de Sabré Sling Phone Case, now on sale for 40 percent off. — Caroline Hughes, Travel + Leisure, 7 Aug. 2026 Think of it like a team of pickpockets, one of which walks up to ask you for directions while the other swipes your wallet. — Alan Henry, PC Magazine, 10 July 2026 Said purse needs to be roomy enough to fit all of my travel essentials, but also secure enough to keep my stuff safe from pickpockets. — Jamie Allison Sanders, PEOPLE, 3 July 2026 Arteta has been known to enlist everything from pickpockets to a naked flame to help convey his ideas to his players. — James McNicholas, New York Times, 19 May 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for pickpockets
  1. thieves
  2. robbers
  3. swindlers
  4. racketeers
  5. vandals
  6. gangsters
  7. hoodlums
  8. ruffians
Noun
  • Police told local news outlets that thieves used one of the company trucks to smash through the site’s security gate and then spent eight hours combing through the building.
    — Devorah Lauter, ARTnews.com, 7 Aug. 2026
  • The thieves reportedly gained access to the building by using a Lilli Petroli truck and tearing down a large iron entrance gate using a cable.
    — Theo Belci, Artforum, 7 Aug. 2026
Definition of thieves
Noun
  • Police said the robbers were wearing dark clothing and masks.
    — Dylan Olsen, CBS News, 10 Aug. 2026
  • Back in the ’90s, one year after making her film debut in Cadillac Man, Petty skyrocketed to fame after starring alongside Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze in the action film about surfers who moonlight as bank robbers.
    — Shania Russell, Entertainment Weekly, 2 Aug. 2026
Definition of robbers
Noun
  • 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
  • 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
Definition of swindlers
Noun
  • Of course, entrusting waste management to gangsters and racketeers has repercussions.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 8 July 2026
  • The characters were based on a real family of bookmakers and racketeers who once lived in England.
    — Sarah Moore, Freep.com, 5 Mar. 2026
Definition of racketeers
Noun
  • Trump, however, continued to push allegations on Monday that vandals were responsible for cutting and tearing the pool lining.
    — Emily Chang, ABC News, 3 Aug. 2026
  • But recent reporting from CNN suggests the president is considering removing Pirro for her conclusion that vandals were not responsible for damages to the pool.
    — Claire Carter, The Washington Examiner, 3 Aug. 2026
Definition of vandals
Noun
  • Badly in Love manages to break through because the cast of men and women looking for true love are from the Japanese yankii subculture—juvenile delinquents, motorcycle gangsters, troubled women, and more.
    — K. Thor Jensen, PC Magazine, 31 July 2026
  • Remember all those fake memoirs from the early 2000s, by all those writers pretending to be addicts and gangsters and Holocaust survivors?
    — James Parker, The Atlantic, 20 July 2026
Definition of gangsters
Noun
  • In the past decade, the leadership of the Kinahan organization has become rich and cosmopolitan, and their life styles have started to resemble those of international businessmen more than of street hoodlums.
    — Ed Caesar, New Yorker, 30 Apr. 2026
  • 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
Definition of hoodlums
Noun
  • The series has lent a cinematic gangster attraction to the Peaky Blinders, yet the term itself was not one gang — as depicted in the show — but a generic expression from the late 19th century for the ‘street ruffians’ of Birmingham, born out of the city’s ring of poverty.
    — Jacob Tanswell, New York Times, 4 Apr. 2026
  • 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
Definition of ruffians

Browse Nearby Words

pickpocket
pickpockets
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Cite this Entry

“Pickpockets.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/pickpockets. Accessed 13 Aug. 2026.

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More from Merriam-Webster on pickpockets

Nglish: Translation of pickpockets for Spanish Speakers

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