'Steal' has always been about secrecy, not force — the same root produced 'stealth' and 'stealthy.'
To take another person's property without permission or legal right and without intending to return it.
From Old English 'stelan' (to steal, to take secretly), from Proto-Germanic *stelaną (to steal), from PIE *stel- (to put, to place — hence to displace, to misplace by taking). The crucial semantic feature of this root has always been concealment: unlike robbery, stealing implied the act went unseen. Proto-Germanic *stelaną gave all the modern Germanic forms — German 'stehlen,' Dutch 'stelen,' Gothic 'stilan.' The same PIE root *stel- also underlies