Burglary
crime of entering someone's property
Burglary, also called breaking and entering (B&E) or housebreaking, is a property crime involving the illegal entry into a building or other area without permission, typically with the intention of committing a further criminal offence. Usually that offence is theft, larceny, robbery, or murder, but most jurisdictions include others within the ambit of burglary. To commit burglary is to burgle, a term back-formed from the word burglar, or to burglarize.
Etymology
Sir Edward Coke (1552–1634) explained at the start of Chapter 14 in the third part of Institutes of the Lawes of England (pub. 1644), that the word Burglar ("or the person that committeth burglary"), is derived from the words burgh and laron, meaning house-thieves. A note indicates he relied on the Brooke's case for this definition.
According to one textbook, the etymology originates from Anglo-Saxon or Old English, one of the Germanic languages. (Perhaps paraphrasing Sir Edward Coke:) "The word burglar comes from the two German words burg, meaning "house", and laron, meaning "thief" (literally "house thief")."
Another suggested etymology is from the later Latin word burgare, "to break open" or "to commit burglary", from burgus, meaning "fortress" or "castle", with the word then passing through French and Middle English, with influence from the Latin latro, "thief". The British verb "burgle" is a late back-formation.
History
Ancient references to breaking into a house can be found in the Code of Hammurabi (no.
“Burglary” enters the record as crime of entering someone's property. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Burglary, crime and entering can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q329425. The Library of Congress control number is sh85141185. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1552, 1634 and 1644.
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This entry incorporates text from “Burglary” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.