The crime of taking the goods of another person without permission (usually secretly), with the intent of keeping them. It is one form of theft. Some states differentiate between grand larceny and petty larceny based on the value of the stolen goods. Grand larceny is a felony with a prison sentence as a punishment and petty larceny is usually limited to county jail time.
Larceny is a crime involving the unlawful taking or theft of the personal property of another person or business. It was an offence under the common law of England and became an offence in jurisdictions which incorporated the common law of England into their own law (also statutory law), where in many cases it remains in force.
The crime of larceny has been abolished in England, Wales, Ireland, and Northern Ireland due to breaking up the generalised crime of larceny into the specific crimes of burglary, robbery, fraud, theft, and related crimes. However, larceny remains an offence in parts of the United States, Jersey, and in New South Wales, Australia, involving the taking (caption) and carrying away (asportation) of personal property without the owner's consent.
English
Etymology
Coined in Middle English (as larceni) between 1425 and 1475 from Anglo-Norman larcin (“theft”), from Latin latrocinium (“robbery”
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