Definition
The felonious taking and carrying away of the personal property of another, without the owner's consent and against the owner's will, with the intent to permanently deprive that person of it. Historically one of the foundational common law property crimes, larceny required the concurrence of several distinct elements: an actual taking (caption), a carrying away (asportation), property belonging to another, absence of consent, and a specific felonious intent.
At common law, larceny was limited to tangible personal property. Intangible property, real property, and certain categories of animals beyond domestic livestock were excluded from its scope. This limitation created significant gaps that legislatures later closed through statutory expansion and, ultimately, consolidated theft statutes.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): The unlawful taking of personal property as an attempt to deprive the legal owner of it permanently.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The unlawful taking and carrying away of things personal with intent to deprive the right owner of the same; theft.
The common and legal meanings are closely aligned in casual use, but the legal definition carries technical weight that the everyday synonym "theft" does not. Larceny is a term of art with specific common law elements; theft is a broader, often statutory concept that may encompass larceny, embezzlement, false pretenses, and receiving stolen property under a single consolidated offense. Treating the terms as interchangeable in a legal research context will produce unreliable results, particularly in historical sources.
Common Confusion
Larceny vs. Theft: In modern statutory systems, most U.S. jurisdictions have replaced larceny with consolidated theft offenses. "Theft" in a contemporary statute may not require all the traditional common law elements of larceny. When researching case law that predates a jurisdiction's theft consolidation, larceny and theft are not synonymous — a conviction for larceny required proof of specific elements (caption, asportation, felonious intent) that a general theft charge may not.
Larceny vs. Embezzlement: Larceny requires a trespassory taking — the offender must wrongfully acquire possession from the outset. Embezzlement, by contrast, applies when someone who lawfully received possession subsequently converts the property. The distinction mattered acutely at common law because a gap between these two offenses left certain fraudulent conversions (by employees, agents, and bailees) unpunished. Early embezzlement statutes were enacted specifically to fill this gap. Conflating the two crimes — or the two bodies of case law — will distort historical research.
Larceny vs. False Pretenses: Larceny by trick and obtaining property by false pretenses are often confused. In larceny by trick, the owner is induced to deliver possession only — title remains with the owner. In false pretenses, the owner is induced to pass both possession and title. The distinction determined which offense was charged and, historically, which court had jurisdiction.
Core Elements
The classical common law elements of larceny:
1. Taking (Caption): The offender must gain dominion and control over the property, even momentarily. Without actual caption, the offense may be only attempted larceny.
2. Carrying Away (Asportation): The slightest movement of the property suffices. Historical courts and treatise writers debated how minimal movement could be — the threshold was set low but remained a formal requirement.
3. Personal Property of Another: At common law, only tangible personal property qualified. Real property and things attached to it were excluded. The property must belong to another — one cannot commit larceny of one's own property.
4. Without Consent: Taking must be without the owner's genuine consent. Consent obtained by force or fraud is not valid consent for this purpose; those scenarios gave rise to related but distinct offenses (robbery, larceny by trick).
5. Felonious Intent (Animus Furandi): The taking must be with intent to permanently deprive the owner of the property. Borrowing — even without permission — traditionally lacked the requisite intent if the taker intended to return the property. This element generated substantial litigation.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
Grand Larceny / Petit (Petty) Larceny: The most durable division in American law, based on the value of the property taken. The threshold distinguishing grand from petty larceny varied by jurisdiction and changed over time. Grand larceny was typically a felony; petit larceny was a misdemeanor. Many jurisdictions with consolidated theft statutes retain value-based gradations under different labels.
Simple Larceny: The basic offense, involving no aggravating circumstances.
Compound (Mixed) Larceny: Larceny accompanied by aggravating factors recognized under statute — most commonly, a taking from a building or dwelling, or from the person. Webster's 1913 identifies these as statutory aggravations; they should not be confused with the common law crime of burglary or robbery, which have separate elements.
Larceny by Trick: A form of larceny in which the taker obtains possession (but not title) through misrepresentation or deception. Distinguishable from false pretenses, where title itself passes.
Larceny from the Person: Taking directly from the person of the owner, without the force or intimidation that would elevate the offense to robbery.
Why It Matters in Research
The single most important navigational point for corpus researchers: most U.S. states and the federal system have replaced common law larceny with consolidated theft statutes, many modeled on the Model Penal Code. Case law decided after a jurisdiction's theft consolidation may use larceny and theft interchangeably or may define elements under the new statute without reference to classical common law doctrine. Case law predating consolidation will apply strict common law element analysis. Know which regime your jurisdiction was operating under at the time of the decision you are reading.
The asportation and animus furandi elements generated voluminous litigation in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Historical cases on these points — particularly what counted as sufficient movement and whether intent to return negated felonious intent — cannot be reliably cited for modern purposes without verifying whether a consolidation statute or its interpretive case law has displaced them.
Value thresholds for grand vs. petit larceny shifted repeatedly across jurisdictions and time periods. A research trail following the grand/petit distinction must account for the specific statutory threshold in effect at the relevant time. Many nineteenth-century thresholds ($25, $50, $100) bear no relation to modern equivalents.
The gap offenses — embezzlement, false pretenses, receiving stolen property — were legislative responses to specific limitations in larceny doctrine. When researching any of those offenses, understanding what larceny did not cover is essential context.
The Law Mind corpus will contain sources using "larceny" in both the strict common law sense and loosely as a synonym for theft. The historical dictionaries cluster around the strict sense; statutory and modern materials may not.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries converge strongly on the core definition: felonious taking and carrying away of the personal goods of another. Bouvier, Burrill, and Black's all incorporate the consent and intent elements; Rapalje & Lawrence adds the important qualifier "without color of right," which surfaces in cases involving disputed ownership or claim of right defenses.
The dictionaries reflect the common law moment, before statutory consolidation complicated the picture. None of the historical sources grapples with the displacement of larceny by theft statutes — a gap researchers must supply from twentieth-century materials.
Black's (as excerpted) notes that "the decisions are not harmonious" on certain larceny questions, citing Bishop's Criminal Law. This is an honest signal: the common law doctrine was contested at the edges. Rapalje & Lawrence flags the grand/petit distinction as a matter of varying statutory thresholds, correctly noting the jurisdictional variability. Bouvier's formulation — "with the intent to convert it to the use of the taker" — captures the animus furandi requirement, though later authorities and some statutes extended the intent element to conversion for the use of any person, not just the taker.
None of the historical dictionaries adequately addresses larceny by trick as a distinct recognized form, nor do they distinguish it clearly from false pretenses — a gap that nineteenth-century courts and treatise writers (particularly Bishop and Wharton) addressed at length. Researchers working on fraud-adjacent larceny issues should not rely solely on dictionary definitions.
Jurisdictional Note
England abolished the grand/petit larceny distinction and eventually replaced the common law crime with statutory theft under the Theft Act 1968. American states followed varied paths: some abolished larceny by statute in the mid-twentieth century, others retained it alongside consolidated offenses well into the late twentieth century. Federal law treats theft-type offenses under various specific statutes rather than a single larceny provision. Assume no uniformity across jurisdictions or time periods.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Theft and Larceny — Elements and Classification (The Law Mind Criminal Law Encyclopedia)