These words refer to the taking of someone else’s possessions against his will. Robbery most often suggests a face-to-face confrontation between robber and victim in which the victim surrenders his valuable bakes of threat or violence. In common understanding, thuggry , sometimes known under its American name of mugging , is a robbery that occurs with an actual carrying out of violence, so that the victim is rendered helpless or unconscious and then divested of his valuables. Burglary , by contrast, refers to a person’s breaking and entering any dwelling house by night with intent to steal – whether or not such intent is actually carried out. Hold-up and stick-up approach slang in their informality; stick-up can functions as an informal substitute for robbery , but like hold-up it can refer also to the robbing of premises, such as a bank, when a group of people is confronted and cowed. Hold-up refers to detention by force with a view to robbery , and thus is closer to burglary except for its necessary implication of an intended confrontation.

Theft and larceny are more general and abstract than these other words; theft can apply to any taking of property against the will of the owner, whether by stealth, confrontation or fraud. Larceny is the legal term for theft. Formerly under English law, if the value of stolen goods was no more than 12d. (10c), the theft was called petty larceny and a light sentence would apply upon conviction; if over, grand larceny had been committed, carrying a heavier sentence.