An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/stehlen

by Friedrich Kluge

stehlen, verb, ‘to steal,’ from the equivalent Middle High German stëln, Old High German stëlan; a common Teutonic strong verb. Compare Gothic stilan, Old Icelandic stela, Anglo-Saxon stëlan, English to steal (to which stealth is allied), Dutch stelen, Old Saxon stëlan, ‘to steal.’ The root is confined to Teutonic, and corresponds only partly to Greek στερίσκω, ‘to rob’; perhaps the Teutonic l instead of the Greek r is due to hehlen (on account of the frequent combination of hehlen and stehlen). À verb corresponding to the Greek κλέπτω, ‘to steal,’ is preserved in Gothic (compare Gothic hlifan, ‘to steal’).