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The award-winning 2019 video game Untitled Goose Game, in which players control the titular (or “un-titular”?) waterfowl through several levels of light and family-friendly mayhem, serves as an excellent primer on the meaning of filch. In fact, many of the game’s objectives involve waddling furtively around a quaint little scene, such as a garden, and trying to avoid detection by humans while you pilfer, say, a pumpkin or a woolen hat. To filch is to steal something (usually, though not always, a small or relatively unimportant something) in secret. So why not just use steal? There’s often a distinct twang of humor or mischievousness in filch that’s not inherent in plain old steal, and that reflects a casualness or nonchalance on the part of the silly goose—whether literal or figurative—snatching the pie from the windowsill.
Examples of filch in a Sentence
Literary Hub, 3 Feb. 2026
When the merch sold out, some took to filching from the tables: glassware, salt and pepper shakers, and even utensils.
—Suhauna Hussain, Los Angeles Times, 21 Jan. 2026
For a time, Louise ran an outfit of bookies from her room; Mae taught Burnett to filch toilet paper from a local luncheonette.
—Rachel Syme, New Yorker, 29 Sep. 2025
The plot about an attempt to filch a special gobstopper is, of course, lifted directly from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971), in which another candy maker named Slugworth seeks to undercut his competition.
—Miles Klee, Rolling Stone, 29 Feb. 2024
See All Example Sentences for filch
Cite this Entry
“Filch.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/filch. Accessed 14 Feb. 2026.
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