# Origin of the word Kifed
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-word-kifed/30307
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [August 22, 2000, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-word-kifed/30307 "2000-08-22T14:17:05Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@furthur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furthur)
#### Post date: [August 22, 2000, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-word-kifed/30307/1 "2000-08-22T14:17:05Z")
A friend of mine says he uses the word “kifed,” meaning to steal something. Recently he was out to dinner with his mother-in-law and used that word and she replied “Isn’t that kind of offensive?” She wouldn’t elaborate on why she thought that.
I searched the internet and found the word used in the context of stealing something on several personal web pages, but cannot find a dictionary definition or explanation of origin for it. I also looked in slang and swearing dictionaries, but still could find nothing.
The word rhymes with an offensive racial term, but I didn’t think that was a problem, except in Washington, D.C. (the “niggardly” incident.)
So, can anyone help with the origin of “kifed?”
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### Author:  [@mouthbreather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mouthbreather)
#### Post date: [August 22, 2000, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-word-kifed/30307/2 "2000-08-22T14:48:15Z")
This probably doesn’t help much as to how it relates to stealing, but the word _kif_ is an OLD word for marijuana.
In Paul Bowles book _A Hundred Camels in the Courtyard_ (I think it was written in the 1920’s) On the opening pages, there is a quote that is something to the effect of “A pipe of kif before breakfast gives a man the strength of a hundred camels in the courtyard” and IIRC it is listed as an old Indian Proverb? I think it was Indian, anyway.
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### Author:  [@jb\_farley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jb_farley)
#### Post date: [August 22, 2000, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-word-kifed/30307/3 "2000-08-22T21:41:05Z")
mouthbreather is on the money with the marijuana reference. Kif, prnounced keef, is the resinous crystals collected from the beautiful buds of mary.
as to kifed, does it rhyme with ‘knifed’? i have never heard of it, so i doubt it has much to do w/ kif. unless it’s pronounced keefed.
sorry.
jb
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### Author:  [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)
#### Post date: [August 22, 2000, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-word-kifed/30307/4 "2000-08-22T21:41:57Z")
IANAE, but it may be related to the word _cop_, to grab or steal (now used mostly in the phrase _to cop a plea_). In my youth, the form of this was _kipe_, which only meant steal. Perhaps the evolution was cop-\>kipe-\>kife.
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### Author:  [@Nanook\_of\_the\_North\_Shore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nanook_of_the_North_Shore)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2000, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-word-kifed/30307/5 "2000-08-23T01:43:42Z")
Stephen King used it in “The Running Man” writing as Richard Bachman. Obviously then its not new then, since that was written in the late 70’s, early 80’s. As for where it came from, I dunno.
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### Author:  [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2000, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-word-kifed/30307/6 "2000-08-23T04:49:00Z")
From **American Slang** by Robert L. Chapman, Ph.D.
> [@](#):
>
> **kife** [ul]1. _v circus_ To swindle
> 2. _v_ To steal.[/ul]
This dictionary uses two different types of “impact symbols” around the entries to indicate words that are taboo (very strongly to be avoided) or vulgar (to be avoided except when a certain effect is desired). **Kife** is neither taboo nor vulgar. **Kike** , of course, is taboo. I suspect the mother-in-law just confused the two words.
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### Author:  [@GaWd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GaWd)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2000, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-word-kifed/30307/7 "2000-08-23T12:23:17Z")
\*\*Kike, of course, is taboo. I suspect the mother-in-law just confused the two words. \*\*
Yep, I think she heard the word “Kike”. Kifing has always been stealing, and Kif(keef) has always been akin to hash in my part of the world 🙂
-Sam
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### Author:  [@BookwormNamedMe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BookwormNamedMe)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2021, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-word-kifed/30307/8 "2021-07-02T13:19:19Z")
The derivation of “kipe” is, as so often the case with slang terms, uncertain, but it may well have arisen as a modification of the now-obsolete English verb “to kip,” meaning to take hold of or to snatch." This “kip,” which first appeared in English around 1250, was based on the Old Norse verb “kippa,” meaning “to snatch, tug or pull.”
I grew up with kife, which is a variant of kipe.
[http://www.word-detective.com/021804.html](http://www.word-detective.com/021804.html)
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### Author:  [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2021, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-word-kifed/30307/9 "2021-07-02T13:34:12Z")
I think this post deserves some kind of prize.
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### Author:  [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2021, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-the-word-kifed/30307/10 "2021-07-02T13:35:09Z")
Maybe she was [a Piers Anthony fan](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-m&q=%22kife%22+bio+space+tyrant&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjTw7vVv8TxAhXMk2oFHW3vBCYQ5t4CMAJ6BAgCEAg).