Advertisement

Advertisement

rob Peter to pay Paul

  1. 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.


Discover More

Idioms and Phrases

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.

Advertisement

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement