Word.ws English Dictionary

borrow from Peter to pay Paul

borrow from Peter to pay Paul is the alternative form of rob Peter to pay Paul.

Meaning of rob Peter to pay Paul

Verb

rob Peter to pay Paul (third-person singular simple present robs Peter to pay Paul, present participle robbing Peter to pay Paul, simple past and past participle robbed Peter to pay Paul)

  1. (idiomatic) To use resources that legitimately belong to or are needed by one party in order to satisfy a legitimate need of another party, especially within the same organization or group; to solve a problem in a way that makes another problem worse, producing no net gain.
    • [I]t would be robbing Peter to pay Paul, for the government to pay a stamp-duty to itself.1838, Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country, volume 17, number 98, London, page 224

Forms of borrow from Peter to pay Paul

third-person singular presentborrows from Peter to pay Paul
present participleborrowing from Peter to pay Paul
past participleborrowed from Peter to pay Paul
pastborrowed from Peter to pay Paul

Questions about borrow from Peter to pay Paul

What is borrow from Peter to pay Paul the alternative form of?
Borrow from Peter to pay Paul is the alternative form of rob Peter to pay Paul.

Words near borrow from Peter to pay Paul in the dictionary

  1. Borrotos
  2. Borrovian
  3. borrow
  4. borrow a leaf out of someone's book
  5. borrow a page from someone's book
  6. borrow from Peter to pay Paul
  7. borrow pit
  8. borrow pits
  9. borrow roll
  10. borrow rolls
  11. borrow trouble

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: borrow from Peter to pay Paul (page history and authors); rob Peter to pay Paul (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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