cabbage

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The Word of the Day for February 25 is:

cabbage   \KAB-ij\   verb 
     : steal, filch

Example sentence:
     In the late 18th-century play _The Reconciliation_, Mrs. 
Grim confesses that she "now and then cabbaged a penny."

Did you know?
     Does the "filching" sense of "cabbage" bring to mind an 
image of thieves sneaking out of farm fields with armloads of 
pilfered produce? If so, you're in for a surprise. 
That "cabbage" has nothing to do with the leafy vegetable. It 
originally referred to the practice among tailors of pocketing 
part of the cloth given to them to make garments. The verb was 
cut from the same cloth as an older British noun "cabbage," 
which meant "pieces of cloth left in cutting out garments and 
traditionally kept by tailors as perquisites." Both of those 
ethically questionable "cabbages" probably derived 
from "cabas," the Middle French word for "cheating or theft." 
The "cabbage" found in cole slaw, on the other hand, comes from 
Middle English "caboche," which means "head."