Most individuals are unfamiliar with the term larceny and its place in legal vocabulary.
 Even for individuals who may be able to identify it as a word referring to theft, most will be unable to describe or define the ins and outs of this very specific legal term.
In its most basic definition, larceny refers to the theft of a physical item where the item in question has been taken and carried away from its original owner by an offender who intends to keep it indefinitely.
While this definition may seem relatively straightforward, it is necessary to understand what is meant by "take" and "carry away" in the definition of larceny to be able to understand fully which situations qualify as larceny and which do not.
Take For a situation to meet the technical definitions of larceny, an offender must take total control over the physical property of another individual, even if just for a moment.
 If the offender does not have control over the item in question, then the incident will not qualify as larceny.
A concrete example may help clarify this stipulation.
 If a woman is walking through a park and a man comes and knocks her cellular phone out of her hand with the intent to steal it, but fails to pick the phone up off the ground and runs away, the situation is not considered larceny because the man failed to take control over the phone in question.
However, if the same man runs past the woman, knocks the phone out of her had, picks it up and runs away with it, drops it on accident, and leaves the phone laying on the ground, the incident does qualify as larceny because the offender had control over the item, even if only for a moment.
Carry Away The other requirement necessary for a theft to qualify as larceny is that the item in question must be carried away from its original location.
 Like the definition of "take", this change can be minuscule.
 Even if the item is moved a centimeter away from its original location, this movement is enough to qualify the object as being "carried away".
However, there is a difference between an object being "carried away" and "preparing an object to be carried away".
 Again, an example may be the best way to show this difference.
Imagine a woman wants to steal a bicycle from her neighbor's yard.
 If the bike is lying on the grass on its side and the woman picks the bike up and sets it upright, this act alone is not sufficient to qualify as larceny, as she has not carried the bike away but has only prepared to carry it away.
However, if she picks up the bike and takes two steps with it, the act has now become larceny since she has physically carried the bike away from its original location.
For more information on larceny or other types of theft, contact the Rhode Island criminal defense attorney James Powderly today.