Levi and the Mysterious Word 'Kava'
A man tells the amora Levi that someone was "kava" him. Levi asks the beis midrash what it means, and learns the man was robbed but didn't want to shame the thief.
The Gemara (Rosh Hashanah 26b) relates the following episode: Levi (the amora) visited a certain locality. Recognizing Levi as a rabbi, a distressed person approached him and said, “So-and-so was ‘kava’ me.” Levi had no idea what the man was intending to say, so he went to the beis midrash and asked if anyone knows what “kava” means. The students there told him that “kava” means “to steal.” They explained further that the source of the obscure word is a verse in Malachi.
The reason Levi refrained from asking the man to explain himself was Levi’s suspicion that the man was referring to illicit relations, and he did not want to hear the sordid details. As it turns out, the man was just saying that “so-and-so robbed me.” So why didn’t he say this clearly, instead of using a cryptic word? The Sifsei Chachamim answers that there were other people nearby, and he did not want to embarrass the thief. He needed assistance, but there was no need to publicize that the individual was a burglar. He therefore spoke in a riddle hoping that the rabbi would understand his intended meaning.