highway robbery

English

Alternative forms
  • highway-robbery

Etymology

Compare Old English weġrēaf (“highway robbery”, literally “road-theft”).

Pronunciation
  • Audio (AU)(file)

Noun

highway robbery (countable and uncountable, plural highway robberies)

  1. (historical, literally) The act of robbing a traveler on a public road.
  2. (idiomatic) Said of excessive or exorbitant prices.
    They think they can charge $400 for a shirt? That's highway robbery.

Synonyms

(the asking of an excessive or exorbitant price): daylight robbery

Antonyms

Translations
The asking of an excessive or exorbitant price — see daylight robbery

See also
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