daylight robbery
English
WOTD – 28 February 2022
Etymology
From daylight + robbery, originally used literally to refer to robbery occurring in the daytime rather than at night, which was thought to be more audacious or risky.[1]
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˌdeɪlaɪt ˈɹɒb(ə)ɹi/
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˌdeɪˌlaɪt ˈɹɑb(ə)ɹi/
Audio (AU) (file) - Hyphenation: day‧light rob‧bery
Noun
daylight robbery (countable and uncountable, plural daylight robberies) (idiomatic, chiefly British, informal)
- (uncountable) The practice of cheating or of imposing an exorbitant charge for a product or service; (countable, rare) an instance of this.
- Synonyms: highway robbery, price gouging
- (chiefly sports, uncountable) Conduct which unfairly deprives an opponent of an advantage or a win; (countable, rare) an instance of this.
- Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see daylight, robbery.
- 2006, Sarah N. Welling, “Stop and Frisk”, in Paul Finkelman, editor, Encyclopedia of American Civil Liberties, volume 3, Routledge, published 2013, →ISBN, page 1570, column 1:
- A daylight robbery of a store carries with it a risk that the store clerk will be present and a confrontation will ensue, so grounds to fear a daylight robbery give rise to a reasonable inference that the defendant is armed and dangerous.
Translations
practice of cheating or of imposing an exorbitant charge for a product or service; an instance of this
|
conduct which unfairly deprives an opponent of an advantage or a win; an instance of this
References
- “daylight robbery, n.”, in OED Online , Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, September 2019; “daylight robbery, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
Further reading
- Daylight Robbery (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
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