rob
pronunciation
How to pronounce rob in British English:
UK [rɒb]
How to pronounce rob in American English:
US [rɑːb]
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- Verb:
- take something away by force or without the consent of the owner
- rip off; ask an unreasonable price
Word Origin
- rob
- rob: [13] Rob goes back ultimately to a prehistoric Germanic *raub- ‘break’ (a close relative of the Latin base rup- ‘break’, which has given English rout, route, and rupture). This produced Old English rēafian ‘rob’, which although it has now died out has left us its derivative bereave [OE], and also Middle Dutch rōven ‘rob’, which gave English rover ‘pirate’ [14]. It was also borrowed into Old French as robber, which is the source of modern English rob. Other English descendants of the Germanic base are robe, rubbish, and rubble.=> bereave, corrupt, disrupt, robe, rout, route, rover, rubbish, rubble, rupture
- rob (v.)
- late 12c., from Old French rober "rob, steal, pillage, ransack, rape," from West Germanic *rauba "booty" (cognates: Old High German roubon "to rob," roub "spoil, plunder;" Old English reafian, source of the reave in bereave), from Proto-Germanic *raubon "to rob," from PIE *reup-, *reub- "to snatch" (see rip (v.)).Lord, hou schulde God approve þat þou robbe Petur, and gif þis robbere to Poule in þe name of Crist? [Wyclif, c. 1380]To rob the cradle is attested from 1864 in reference to drafting young men in the American Civil War; by 1949 in reference to seductions or romantic relationships with younger persons. Related: Robbed; robbing.
Example
- 1. Munificent allowances are another wheeze to rob the taxpayer .
- 2. My only regret was that I didn 't rob the church .
- 3. Don 't allow fear to rob you of your happiness , passion , and purpose .
- 4. With no money to lay out , he intends to rob the drug dealers .
- 5. If poor indians each had an identity number tied to unique biometric markers , it would be much harder for the powerful to rob them .