1199–1216 Assize K. John in Placit. Abbrev. 68 De burgaria & aliis latrociniis..De Burgeria & de ligatura & aliis latrociniis.

1516 in Fitzherbert Graunde Abridgement 268 b Que il vient a son meson de faire burglarie.]

1532–3 Act 24 Hen. VIII v Any suche persoune, so attemptinge to committe suche murder or burgulary.

1588 W. Lambarde Eirenarcha (new ed.) ii. vii. 262 Burglarie [1591 Burghlarie] is the theft done by entrie into a dwelling house.

a1603 T. Cartwright Confut. Rhemists New Test. (1618) 558 How like burglary theeues they break open all dores.

1647 N. Bacon Hist. Disc. Govt. xl. 101 Burning of woods was fineable..but Burglary was felony.

1679 Jesuites Ghostly Ways 3 Wounded his creditor, Hugh Hare, a Gentleman of the Temple, by committing burglary.

1768 W. Blackstone Comm. Laws Eng. iv. xvi. 226 Neither can burglary be committed in a tent or booth erected in a market or fair.

1799 R. Southey Nondescripts vi, in Poet. Wks. (1838) III. 71 There is a maggot there..it is his house..His castle..oh commit not burglary!

1855 Wharton Crim. Law U.S. (ed. 3) 598 Burglary is the breaking and entering the dwelling-house of another in the night.

1855 Wharton Crim. Law U.S. (ed. 3) 611 The breaking and entering must be in the night.

1968 Hansard Lords 15 Feb. 217 Clauses 9 and 10 deal with burglary. They replace the complicated ‘breaking and entering offences’...The concept of ‘breaking’ is itself unsatisfactory... This Bill draws no distinction between different kinds of building or between night and day; the concept of breaking disappears and is replaced by the concept of entering as a trespasser.

1974 Encycl. Brit. Micropædia IX. 928/3 Housebreaking originally covered daytime entries, whereas burglary was limited to nighttime thefts; but burglary has been extended to cover all hours of the day and to cover buildings other than houses, as well as automobiles.

1975 A. D. Hechtman in McKinney's Consolidated Laws N.Y. 35 Burglary in the third degree is committed when a person knowingly enters or remains unlawfully in a building with intent to commit a crime therein. If such a building happens to be a dwelling, and the invasion occurs in the night time,..the intruder is..guilty of the more serious crime of burglary in the second degree [etc.].

1976 Times Lit. Suppl. 6 Aug. 998/2 He sticks rigidly to burglary three—breaking into empty apartments in the daytime—since this carries a much less severe rap than burglary one or two.

1985 Financial Times 29 May i. 3 One of the more unusual of Budapest's 1,700 burglaries last year was by a skilled labourer who drove to work in a Mercedes.

1609 Bp. W. Barlow Answer Catholike English-man 308 The second comming of Christ is resembled to a theeues burghlarie.

1712 in Maidment Sc. Pasquils 438 Like fearful women in burglaries they generally add bloodshed to theft.

1888 N.E.D. at Burglary Mod. The season for burglaries has commenced.

1636 C. Fitzgeffry Blessed Birth-day (ed. 2) 37 To breake into Gods sealed secresie This is..bold burglary.

a1677 I. Barrow Several Serm. Evil-speaking (1678) ix. 109 To break open the Closet of a Man's Breast..may well be deemed a worse sort of Burglary..then to break open Doors.