steal: [OE] Steal comes from a prehistoric Germanic base *stel-. This also produced German stehlen, Dutch stelen, Swedish stjäla, and Danish stjæle, but its ultimate ancestry is unknown. The derived stealth [13] originally meant ‘theft’ (‘I know my lord hath spent of Timon’s wealth, and now ingratitude makes it worse than stealth’, Shakespeare, Timon of Athens 1607), but this has gradually been ousted by the metaphorical ‘furtiveness’. Stalk ‘follow furtively’ comes from the same Germanic base. => stalk, stealth
