[rob] 
verb, robbed, rob⋅bing.| 1. | to take something from (someone) by unlawful force or threat of violence; steal from. |
| 2. | to deprive (someone) of some right or something legally due: They robbed her of her inheritance. |
| 3. | to plunder or rifle (a house, shop, etc.). |
| 4. | to deprive of something unjustly or injuriously: The team was robbed of a home run hitter when the umpire called it a foul ball. The shock robbed him of his speech. |
| 5. | Mining. to remove ore or coal from (a pillar). |
| 6. | to commit or practice robbery. |
| 7. | rob Peter to pay Paul, to take something from one person or thing to pay one's debt or hypothetical debt to another, as to sacrifice one's health by overworking. |
To harm one person in order to do good to another; by extension, to use money or resources set aside for one purpose for a different one.
rob (so)
|
"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 1940s. Robber baron in the "corrupt, greedy financier" sense is attested from 1878.
rob Peter to pay Paul
Take from one to give to another, shift resources. For example, They took out a second mortgage on their house so they could buy a condo in Florida
they're robbing Peter to pay Paul. Although legend has it that this expression alludes to appropriating the estates of St. Peter's Church, in Westminster, London, to pay for the repairs of St. Paul's Cathedral in the 1800s, the saying first appeared in a work by John Wycliffe about 1382.
