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 (General Australian):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: day‧light rob‧bery

Noun

daylight robbery (countable and uncountable, plural daylight robberies) (idiomatic, chiefly British, informal)

1. (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

2. (chiefly sports, uncountable) Conduct which unfairly deprives an opponent of an advantage or a win; (countable, rare) an instance of this.
3. 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

Dutch: je reinste diefstal m Finnish: kiskurihinta (exorbitant price), kiskonta (fi) (asking of such a price) French: vol manifeste m, arnaque (fr) f, coup de fusil (fr) m, coup de bambou (fr) m German: (informal) Beutelschneiderei (de) f, (informal) Halsabschneiderei (de) f, Wegelagerei (de) f Hebrew: שֹׁד לְאוֹר הַיּוֹם (he) m (shod leór hayóm) Hungarian: nyílt színi rablás Icelandic: rán um hábjartan dag Irish: gadaíocht gan náire f Korean: 노상강도 (nosanggangdo) Macedonian: грабеж сред бел ден m (grabež sred bel den) Mon: ဒပၠံၚ်ကေတ်အခိၚ်လျးတ္ၚဲ Polish: rozbój w biały dzień (pl) m Portuguese: facada (pt) f, roubo (pt) m Romanian: cămătărie (ro) f Russian: грабёж среди́ бела́ дня (grabjóž sredí belá dnja), зала́мывание цены́ n (zalámyvanije cený) Spanish: atraco a mano armada (informal), atraco a plena luz del día (informal) Welsh: codi crocbris m, lladrad noeth m Wolof: please add this translation if you can Yámana: please add this translation if you can Yiddish: please add this translation if you can Yucatec Maya: please add this translation if you can Yup'ik: please add this translation if you can Zazaki: talanê roci Zhuang: please add this translation if you can Zulu: please add this translation if you can

conduct which unfairly deprives an opponent of an advantage or a win; an instance of this

References

1. “daylight robbery, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: 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