Idiom
highway robbery
Meaning
Excessive or exorbitant prices.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“Paying ten dollars for a small coffee is highway robbery.”
“The hotel charged us fifty dollars for parking, which felt like absolute highway robbery.”
“The company’s decision to charge such exorbitant fees for basic services was widely criticized as nothing short of highway robbery.”
Examples
simple
“Paying ten dollars for a small coffee is highway robbery.”
contextual
“The hotel charged us fifty dollars for parking, which felt like absolute highway robbery.”
complex
“The company’s decision to charge such exorbitant fees for basic services was widely criticized as nothing short of highway robbery.”
Origin
From the Old English compound *weġrēaf*, a term formed by the components for road and theft. The construction provided a literal designation for the act of robbery committed upon a public thoroughfare, a precursor to the modern idiom.
Key words
Related idioms
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