Grab your dictionary…
Sep 21st, 2007 by Dave Olson
… the word of the day is ‘asportation.’
The word appeared not once but twice in our police notes section Monday. In separate incidents, two men were charged with ’shoplifiting by asportation.’
The word raised eyebrows among our readers who couldn’t find the word in their dictionaries.
While asportation may sound exotic, the definition is mundane. Webster’s defines it as ‘the felonious removal of goods from the place where they were deposited.’
In police parlance, it generally means shoplifting by taking — picking something up and carrying it out of the store.
We should have simply said the men were arrested for shoplifting, and then told readers what they took. But then we wouldn’t have learned a new word, right?
to “Grab your dictionary…”
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1Jim Carlson said:
Thank you. I’ve seen the word quite a few times (usually in the Peabody police blotter), but it wasn’t in my dictionary.