Word.ws English Dictionary

robbing Peter to pay Paul

robbing Peter to pay Paul is the present participle and gerund 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

Questions about robbing Peter to pay Paul

What is robbing Peter to pay Paul the present participle and gerund of?
Robbing Peter to pay Paul is the present participle and gerund of rob Peter to pay Paul.

Words near robbing Peter to pay Paul in the dictionary

  1. Robbie
  2. robbin
  3. robbing
  4. robbing blind
  5. robbing out
  6. robbing Peter to pay Paul
  7. robbing the cradle
  8. robbings
  9. robbins
  10. Robbins principle
  11. Robbinsville

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: robbing 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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