This is my first encounter with the word 万引き, and the fact I never would have expected it to mean “shoplifting” despite knowing both those kanji individually sent me down a bit of an etymology rabbit hole:
Originally 間引き (まびき, “thinning out [seedlings]”), applied euphemistically to a store’s inventory. The pronunciation had shifted to まんびき by 1831, and 万 in the modern form is purely phonetic.
Oh that’s neat, I just assumed the meaning was it’s someone just running out with a cartful of stuff, but it seems the original meaning was to sneakily take out pieces from the spaces.
This is my first encounter with the word 万引き, and the fact I never would have expected it to mean “shoplifting” despite knowing both those kanji individually sent me down a bit of an etymology rabbit hole:
Originally 間引き (まびき, “thinning out [seedlings]”), applied euphemistically to a store’s inventory. The pronunciation had shifted to まんびき by 1831, and 万 in the modern form is purely phonetic.
Oh that’s neat, I just assumed the meaning was it’s someone just running out with a cartful of stuff, but it seems the original meaning was to sneakily take out pieces from the spaces.