Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb Law To take property from (a person) illegally by using or threatening to use violence or force; commit robbery upon.
  • intransitive verb To steal something from (a place, vehicle, or institution, for example).
  • intransitive verb To steal (money or valuables).
  • intransitive verb To deprive unjustly of something belonging to, desired by, or legally due (someone).
  • intransitive verb To deprive of something injuriously.
  • intransitive verb To engage in or commit robbery.
  • idiom (rob Peter to pay Paul) To incur a debt in order to pay off another debt.
  • idiom (rob (someone) blind) To rob in an unusually deceitful or thorough way.
  • idiom (rob the cradle) To have a romantic or sexual relationship with someone significantly younger than oneself.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The inspissated juice of ripe fruit, mixed with honey or sugar to the consistence of a conserve; a conserve of fruit.
  • To steal; take away unlawfully.
  • To plunder or strip by force or violence; strip or deprive of something by stealing; deprive unlawfully; commit robbery upon. See robbery.
  • To deprive.
  • To carry away; ravish.
  • To hinder; prevent.
  • In metal-mining, to remove ore from (a mine) with a view to immediate profit rather than to the permanent safety and development of the property.
  • In coal-mining, to cut away or reduce in size, as the pillars of coal left for the support of the mine.
  • Synonyms and To despoil, fleece. See pillage, n.
  • To commit robbery.
  • In spoil-five, when the trump card turned up is an ace, the dealer may rob it by discarding a card from his own hand in its place. If the trump card is not an ace, any player holding the ace of trumps may, when it is his turn to play to the first trick, pass a card to the dealer and receive the turned trump in its place.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb To take that which belongs to another, without right or permission, esp. by violence.
  • noun The inspissated juice of ripe fruit, obtained by evaporation of the juice over a fire till it acquires the consistence of a sirup. It is sometimes mixed with honey or sugar.
  • transitive verb To take (something) away from by force; to strip by stealing; to plunder; to pillage; to steal from.
  • transitive verb (Law) To take the property of (any one) from his person, or in his presence, feloniously, and against his will, by violence or by putting him in fear.
  • transitive verb To deprive of, or withhold from, unjustly or injuriously; to defraud

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb transitive To steal from, especially using force or violence.
  • verb transitive, figuratively To deprive (of).
  • verb intransitive, slang To burgle.
  • verb intransitive To commit robbery.
  • verb sports To take possession of the ball, puck etc. from

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb rip off; ask an unreasonable price
  • verb take something away by force or without the consent of the owner

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English robben, from Old French rober, of Germanic origin; see reup- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English robben, from Anglo-Norman rober, robber, from Old Dutch *rōbōn (compare Dutch roven), from Proto-Germanic *raubōnan (compare English reave). More at reave.

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Examples

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  • (n): (cooking) Fruit juice thickened by evaporation to the consistency of honey.

    January 4, 2009