Also 6 filche, filtch, fylche. [Of unknown origin; see prec. sb.
Originally slang, and, like many other slang words, first recorded in 16th c. The following passage is often quoted as an earlier instance, but the various reading fliched (‘flinched,’ ‘given way’) seems preferable, and in any case the present vb. yields no good sense:—
c. 1300[?]. Song, in Langtoft, Chron. (Rolls), II. 264.
| In toune herd I telle, | |
| Thair baghel and thair belle | |
| Ben filched and fledde.] |
1. trans. To steal, esp. things of small value; to pilfer. Occas. in weaker sense: To take away surreptitiously.
1561. Awdelay, Frat. Vacab., 3. Or els filtch Poultry, carying them to the Alehouse.
1596. H. Clapham, Briefe Bible, I. 65. Let such as haue filtched Church-liuings, marke this.
1602. 2nd Pt. Return fr. Parnass., I. ii. (Arb.), 9. Those eggs which haue ben filcht from the nest of Crowes and Kestrells.
a. 1677. Barrow, Serm., Wks. 1716, II. 155. Perhaps from him [the Jew] they filcht that proud, inhumane, and uncivil humour of monopolizing divine favour and good-will to themselves.
1714. Gay, Trivia, III. 58.
| So speeds the wily Fox, alarm’d by Fear | |
| Who lately filch’d the Turkey’s callow Care. |
1785. Paley, Mor. Philos. (1818), I. 94. If he filched a book out of a Library.
1810. T. Jefferson, Writ., Lett. to S. Kercheval (1830), IV. 138, 19 Feb. But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State; that the purest system of morals ever before preached to man, has been adulterated and sophisticated by artificial constructions, into a mere contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves.
1856. Mrs. Browning, Aur. Leigh, VI. 67. Let pass! I did not filch,—I found the child.
1873. Symonds, Grk. Poets, vii. 212.
| Lo, he would filch me hence, with shame to me, | |
| Loss to my fatherland. |
absol. 1567. Harman, Caveat, 32. They be as skilfull in picking, rifling and filching, as the upright men, and nothing inferior to them in all kind of wickedness, as in other places hereafter they shall be touched.
1688. Ld. Delamer, Wks. (1694), 26. For when Servants are pincht, they will be filching.
1866. Geo. Eliot, F. Holt, 56. If I don’t lie and filch somebody else will.
b. with away, off.
1577. Test. 12 Patriarchs (1604), 52. Ye shall purloin the Lord’s offering, and filch away pieces of it.
1678. Butler, Hud., III. i. 1176.
| What made thee venture to betray, | |
| And filch the Ladie’s Heart away? |
1829. Lytton, Disowned, 4. The rascals would not filch off the corner of your garment.
1843. Prescott, Mexico, V. ii. (1864), 283. He … by arts not very honourable to himself, succeeded in filching away much of the territory of his royal kinsman of Tezouco.
† c. To introduce stealthily into. Obs. rare–1.
1589. Nashe, Almond for Parrat, 3. Malicious hipocryt, didst thou so much malign the successeful thriuings of the Gospell, that thou shouldst filch thy selfe, as a new disease into our gouernement?
2. To rob (of something). rare.
1567. Harman, Caveat, 29. If they méete with a woman alone ridinge to the market, eyther old man or boye, that hée well knoweth will not resiste, such they filche and spoyle.
1837. Howitt, Rur. Life, III. iii. (1862), 243. No man is in danger of either being filched of his purse, or if he chanced to lose it by accident, of not regaining it.
† 3. To beat, strike. Obs.
1567. Harman, Caveat, 84. To fylche, to beate, to stryke.
1610. Rowlands, Martin Mark-all (1874), 38. Filch, to beate.
Hence Filched ppl. a.
1567. Drant, Horace Epist., xiii. E iv. Or drunken Pyrrhe beares her wool her flycesie filched gaine.
a. 1625. Fletcher, The Chances, I. ix.
| Your linsey-woolsey work, your hasty puddings! | |
| I foster up your filch’d iniquities! |
1809. Scott, Poacher, 73.
| His pilfered powder in yon nook he hoards, | |
| And the filched lead the church’s roof affords. |
1856. Boker, Poems, Anne Boleyn, I. i.
| This same haughty moon, | |
| That floods our prospect with her filchéd beams, | |
| Sinks to her native blackness. |
