pickpocket

noun

1. One who steals from the pocket of a passerby, usually by sleight of hand.

   “Old men, young men, and boys, stalwart burglars and highway robbers, slept side by side with wizened pickpockets or cunning-featured area-sneaks.”

   “For several days, Mr. Sammler returning on the customary bus late afternoons from the Forty-second Street Library had been watching a pickpocket at work […] Mr. Sammler if he had not been a tall straphanger would not with his one good eye have seen these things happening.”

verb

1. (transitive)To pick pockets; to steal.

   “Vodafone has also dropped its claim against one of Rhys Edwards’s travelling companions – who had been at the same reunion and had his phone pickpocketed two hours later in almost identical circumstances to Rhys Edwards.”