housebreaker
Americannoun
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a person who breaks into and enters a house with a felonious intent.
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British.
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a worker or wrecking company that demolishes houses and buildings, as to make room for new construction.
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a person who buys doors, paneled walls, etc., from standing houses, to sell as antiques; a person who dismantles a house of its valuable parts before it is torn down.
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Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of housebreaker
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
A hapless housebreaker and a credulous co-conspirator, his criminal misadventures were equaled only by his skill escaping from the dungeons and bagnes that passed for a penal system in the pre-Napoleonic era.
From Salon • Jul. 31, 2011
In his bedroom there stood a wardrobe constructed by William Brodie, and young Stevenson's nanny would tell him the story of Brodie, who had been a respected citizen by day but housebreaker by night.
From The Guardian • Aug. 16, 2010
In Phoenix, Ariz., Mrs. Emma Snow reported that a housebreaker rearranged all her furniture while she was out, made off with four albums of Brahms, Schubert and Tchaikovsky recordings.
From Time Magazine Archive
In Thief, the subject for study is Jean-Paul Belmondo, an impenitent housebreaker operating in the gleaming fin de siecle Paris of Lautrec and Bonnard.
From Time Magazine Archive
“Now suppose that you were, in truth, the owner of that house, and could not still get in; and think there was to you no conscience of the housebreaker, what would you do?”
From "Dracula" by Bram Stoker
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
