cutpurse

[ kuht-purs ]
See synonyms for cutpurse on Thesaurus.com
noun
  1. Older Use. a pickpocket.

  2. (formerly) a person who steals by cutting purses from the belt.

Origin of cutpurse

1
First recorded in 1325–75, cutpurse is from the Middle English word cutte-purs.See cut, purse

Words Nearby cutpurse

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use cutpurse in a sentence

  • Feb. 10th, at two after none I toke a cutpurse taking my purse out of my pocket in the Temple.

  • Here and there, a cutpurse slunk through the crowd, seeking his own type of bargain—an unwary victim.

    Millennium | Everett B. Cole
  • A cutpurse is of the surest trade; for his work is no sooner done, but he hath his money in his hand.

  • The light-fingered art must have degenerated in Toledo since the day of that clever cutpurse of the "Exemplary Tales."

    Spanish Highways and Byways | Katharine Lee Bates
  • Moll cutpurse, whose intelligence and audacity were never bettered, was among the bravest of the Elizabethans.

    A Book of Scoundrels | Charles Whibley

British Dictionary definitions for cutpurse

cutpurse

/ (ˈkʌtˌpɜːs) /


noun
  1. an archaic word for pickpocket

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012