The AI-powered English dictionary
countable and uncountable, plural pilferages
The individual act or recurring practice of stealing items of low value, especially in small quantities, for which the legal term is petty theft. quotations examples
Sir Thomas Royden, Chairman of the L.M.S.R., and Mr. Robert Holland-Martin, Chairman of the Southern Railway, both deplored the wholesale robbery and petty pilferage which have increased until they have reached appalling dimensions.
1942 May-June, “Theft on the Railways”, in Railway Magazine, page 130
Still, there is pilferage, mysterious discrepancies eating into the percentages.
1981, John Updike, Rabbit is Rich