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Robbery   Listen
noun
Robbery  n.  (pl. robberies)  
1.
The act or practice of robbing; theft. "Thieves for their robbery have authority When judges steal themselves."
2.
(Law) The crime of robbing. See Rob, v. t., 2. Note: Robbery, in a strict sense, differs from theft, as it is effected by force or intimidation, whereas theft is committed by stealth, or privately.
Synonyms: Theft; depredation; spoliation; despoliation; despoilment; plunder; pillage; rapine; larceny; freebooting; piracy.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Robbery" Quotes from Famous Books



... money coming into Cadiz from South America in four Spanish frigates, and instead of leaving me to catch them, they sent out Graham Moore—you know him very well—with orders to pocket everything. This will create a war with Spain, a war begun with robbery on our part, though it must have come soon in any case. For everywhere now, except where I am, that fiend of a Corsican ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... ya-ard, an' thin he come through th' place with his face dead gray an' his lips just a turn grayer. 'Where ar-re ye goin', Petey?' says I. 'I was jus' takin' a short cut home,' he says. In three minyits th' r-road was full iv polismin. They'd been a robbery down in Halsted Sthreet. A man that had a grocery sthore was stuck up, an' whin he fought was clubbed near to death; an' they'd r-run Scanlan through th' alleys to his father's house. That was as far as they'd go. They was enough iv thim to've kicked ...
— Mr. Dooley in Peace and in War • Finley Peter Dunne

... been attacked by some thieves who had been in the habit of entering unoccupied houses and rifling them of their contents. They had even arrested an old vagabond, and accused him of the attempted robbery at General Vogotzine's; but the old man had answered: "I do not even know the house." But was not this Menko a hundred times more culpable than a thief? It was more and worse than money or silver that he had dared to come for: it was to impose his love upon a woman whose heart he ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie

... Mr. Coulson," he said, closing his pocketbook, "that the murder was committed for the purpose of robbery?" ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... state penitentiary had ever held him, or ever would, but that "as the game was up" he would give them a few particulars regarding his past life. He gave his true name, the name of a man who, twenty-five years before, had been wanted in the state of New York for a heavy bank robbery and murder. For years, under an alias, he had belonged to a gang of counterfeiters in Missouri, but upon the discovery and arrest of the leaders of the band, he had assumed his present ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour

... to choose one of two. Jesus was the one; who was the other? A man half brigand, half rebel, who had raised some petty revolt against Rome, more as a pretext for robbery and crime than from patriotism, and whose hands reeked with blood. And this ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... times, Porto Bello once, Chagre twice, Panama once, Santa Catalina twice, Granada in Nicaragua twice, Campeache three times, St. Jago de Cuba once, and other towns and villages in Cuba and Hispaniola for thirty leagues inland innumerable times. And this fearful tale of robbery and outrage does not embrace the various expeditions against Porto Bello, Campeache, Cartagena and other Spanish ports made after 1670. The Marquis de Barinas in 1685 estimated the losses of the Spaniards at the hands of the buccaneers since the ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring

... a case of premeditated assault—in short, of robbery with violence. It must be inquired into—reported, of course, at head-quarters, without loss of time. Would Monsieur be pleased to describe the stolen sketch-book? An oblong, green volume, secured by an elastic band; contains sketches in pencil and water-colors; value uncertain—Good. ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards

... idle to speak of the British occupation of India as a conquest or a robbery. It is a fashion of much "advanced" literature in Europe to assume that the European rule of various Asiatic countries is the result of deliberate conquest with a view to spoliation. But that is only the ugly ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells

... calm answer. "If you are mad enough to disobey me, I shall whistle for the police; they will find me struggling with a most villainous-looking ruffian, whom I instantly give in charge for assault and robbery of my dear friend, Mr. Leroy, who has gone in search ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice

... those provinces, asserted that idleness had been the bane and ruin of the colored classes of the colony, and in the eastern provinces has led to rebellion, anarchy, robbery, and murder. ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay

... truth, and it did not tell the whole truth. It omitted to state that the organization was planned in Richmond; that its operations were directed by Jacob Thompson, who was in Canada for that purpose; and that wholesale robbery, arson, and midnight ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various

... Pickle,' 'Humphrey Clinker,' 'Tom Jones,' 'The Vicar of Wakefield,' 'Don Quixote, 'Gil Blas,' and 'Robinson Crusoe,' came out, a glorious host, to keep him company." And the queer small boy had read Shakespeare's "Henry IV.," too, and knew all about Falstaff's robbery of the travellers at Gad's Hill, on the rising ground between Rochester and Gravesend, and all about mad Prince Henry's pranks; and, what was more, he had determined that when he came to be a man, and had made his way in the world, he should own the house ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials

... certainly known only to two or three. There were whispers of forgery, and even robbery, and some said it was only debt, which his father refused to pay. There were others involved in the matter, and it was kept quiet. Some of the young Holts were among the number. Jacob, Gershom's eldest son, ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson

... Reggie!" Her eyes were shining with excitement. "Don't you see? It's Providence. When I asked you to come here, I had just got the idea. I knew I could rely on you. And then by a miracle this robbery of the Romney takes place at a house not two miles away. It removes the last chance of the poor old man suspecting anything and having his feelings hurt. Why, it's the most wonderful compliment to him. Think! One night thieves steal a splendid Romney; the next the same gang take his 'Venus.' ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse

... them must have some good reason in the nature of things, he yields to his destiny, enjoys his dark canal without scruple, and mourns over every improvement in the town, and every movement made by its sanitary commissioners, as a miser would over a planned robbery of his chest; in all this being not only innocent, but even respectable and admirable, compared with the kind of person who has no pleasure in sights of this kind, but only in fair facades, trim gardens, and park palings, and who would thrust all poverty and misery ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin

... other's secrets. Kill one, and there remains the other—doubly dangerous because alarmed. They take turns to visit Rome, the other remaining in hiding with their following of freedmen and educated slaves. They only commit just enough robbery to gain themselves an enviable reputation on the countryside. They visit their friends in Rome in various disguises, and they travel all over Italy to plot with the adherents of this faction or the other. Sextus favors Pertinax—says he would ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy

... watched and followed him. He was then taken to an asylum by gendarmes, where he died in three hours. Francois, on his part, calmed down on the morning of the 24th, and employed the day in inquiring about the robbery. By a strange chance, he crossed his brother's path at the moment when the latter was struggling with the gendarmes; then he himself became maddened, giving way to extravagant gestures and using incoherent ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton

... the sentiments just expressed; but I also think that we should endeavor to find some further clues or evidence. Had Mr. Crawford any enemies who would come at night to kill him? Or are there any valuables missing? Could robbery ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells

... right to an equal voice in enacting and executing the laws. Nor can one man, or millions on millions of men acquire or possess the power to withhold that right from the humblest human being of sane mind, but by usurpation, and by rebellion against the constitution of the moral universe. It would be robbery, though the giving of the right should induce all the predicted and dreaded evils of tyrants, cowards and white male citizens. Be justice done though the heavens fall and the hells arise! Nay, it is only justice, reared as a lightning-rod, that can ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... "Either so, or by robbery. Many of them were terrible thieves, my dear, and I dare say Sir Guy was no better than he should be. But since that they have always called some of the Pallisers Plantagenet. My husband's name is Plantagenet. The Duke is called George Plantagenet, and the king was his godfather. ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope

... imagining that if she were removed all his uncomfortable feelings would disappear with her. But still, after all, perhaps crime has its own doctrine of perfection. A beginning of evil demands its end; a first stab must be followed by the blow that kills. Perhaps robbery is doomed to lead to murder. Minoret had committed the crime without the slightest reflection, so rapidly had the events taken place; reflection came later. Now, if you have thoroughly possessed yourself of this man's ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac

... own account, out of work-hours. With this notable intention, he arose soon after dawn of a pleasant summer-morning, for the purpose of picking blackberries. Now he knew that they were very plentiful in a field near the Blount farmhouse, and, thinking such small theft no robbery, he made his way thither with all speed, and was soon filling his basket with the dew-sprinkled fruit. Early as it was, however, he soon discovered that there was some one up before him. He heard a sound of talking in low, caressing tones, and, glancing in the direction ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various

... oxen have suffered considerably of late from troops of marauders, who roam over the steppes killing the animals merely to take their hides. This robbery has increased since the trade of the Lower Orinoco has become more flourishing. For half a century, the banks of that great river, from the mouth of the Apure as far as Angostura, were known only to the missionary-monks. The exportation of cattle took place from ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt

... end of bother. It would not be worth the trouble, and he has been pretty well punished. I have cut my knuckles, and I imagine that when he comes to be will find himself minus some of his teeth. I wonder what his object was robbery, I suppose and yet it is hardly likely that the fellow would have singled me out and decided to kill me on the off chance of finding something worth taking. He could not have seen that I have a watch on, for my greatcoat ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty

... stone dungeons with little cross-barred windows and loopholes from which to shoot at people going by. Yet to-day a country gentleman in some parts of Massachusetts may sleep securely without locking his front-door. We have not yet done away with robbery and murder, but we have at least made private warfare illegal; we have arrayed public opinion against it to such an extent that the police-court usually makes short shrift for the misguided man who tries to wreak vengeance on his enemy. ...
— American Political Ideas Viewed From The Standpoint Of Universal History • John Fiske

... come under the general head of stealing. People call it theft, when it is effected with secrecy and slyness; robbery, when there is a suggestion of force or violence. The swindler is he who appropriates another's goods by methods of gross deception or false pretenses while the embezzler transfers to himself the funds entrusted to his care. Petty thieving is called pilfering or filching; stealing on a large scale ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton

... two natives, and that old King Cracko, since deceased, had punished the captain by death, in the exercise of his legitimate authority. He denied that the tribe had participated in Captain Farwell's murder, or in those of the mate and crew, or in the robbery of the vessel; affirming that the schooner had gone ashore, and that everything was lost. All this was a tissue of falsehood; it being notorious that a large quantity of goods from the wreck, and portions ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge

... up the great list of crimes laid at the charge of conquerors and generals. The nations are coming to understand that the magnitude of a crime cannot be its extenuation; that if killing is a crime, killing many can be no extenuating circumstance; that if robbery is disgraceful, invasion cannot be glorious. Ah! let us proclaim these absolute truths; let us ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy

... four or six mules. There was ever to be feared an attack by those devils of the desert, the Cheyennes, Comanches, and Kiowas. Along its whole route the remains of men, animals, and the wrecks of camps and wagons, told a story of suffering, robbery, and outrage more impressive than any language. Now the tourist or business man makes the journey in palace cars, and there is nothing to remind him of the danger or desolation of Border days; on every hand are the evidences of ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... closed upon it, she choked back a cry. Some one had been here! A piece of paper was wrapped around the key. What did it mean? What did all these strange, yes, sinister, things that had happened to-night mean? How had Rorke known that a robbery was to be committed at Skarbolov's? Who was that man who had effected her escape, and who, she knew now, was no more drunk than she was? Fast, quick, piling one upon the other, the ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard

... one embarrassment. There was no bank in the place where money could be deposited, and of course the chance of loss by robbery was much increased. However, his partner purchased a small safe, and this ...
— The Young Bank Messenger • Horatio Alger

... girls pondered on these two mysterious robberies and found themselves not one whit nearer the solution. It was Mollie who finally suggested that they go to her house and look at a couple of new dresses she had bought recently. "It will help get our minds off the robbery," she said. ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope

... examine whether people have gibbets in common, as they have meadows and woods in common, and a common purse, and if one represses ideas with wheels; but it seems very strange to me that Nicole should take highway robbery and assassination for self-esteem. One should distinguish shades of difference a little better. The man who said that Nero had his mother assassinated through self-esteem, that Cartouche had much self-esteem, would not be expressing himself very correctly. Self-esteem ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire

... to see our suppliant negotiator in the act of putting his feather to the ear of the directory, to make it unclinch the fist; and, by his tickling, to charm that rich prize out of the iron gripe of robbery and ambition! It does not require much sagacity to discern that no power wholly baffled and defeated in Europe can flatter itself with conquests in the West Indies. In that state of things it can neither keep nor hold. No! It cannot even ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury

... and nothing seemed easier than to slide a hand through the fusuma and appropriate it. Ito told me that the well was badly contaminated, the odours were fearful; illness was to be feared as well as robbery! So ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird

... I could only prove that Tim and I weren't guilty of that robbery at the hotel dance, I would be all right," Larry told himself. He felt sure that the evil-minded Buck Looker was still holding ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman

... give us something to eat, or sell it," replied Jack, who was ravenous, clutching his pistol, "I shall take it—I consider it no robbery. The fruits of the earth were made for us all, and it never was intended that one man should have a superfluity and another ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat

... that all he knew of the robbery plot was hearsay—that his informants had excluded him from a part of their consultations. An ugly possibility took vague shape in his mind, but ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck

... part; a woman most wonderfully like you, even to the voice. There is no other solution of the problem. And that reveals the plan of robbery—to get you out of the way, and then have her take the fortune. Who would ever suspect such ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish

... was a notice printed very small on the back of the receipt saying the company would not be responsible in any case of disappointment, overcrowding, accident, delay, robbery, murder, or the Act of God; but my friend Mr. Quail very properly paid no attention to that rubbish, knowing well enough (he is a J.P.) that a man cannot sign himself out of ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc

... Faringfield house to vent his disappointment upon Madge. Or else he had got money from some other source; he may have gambled with what part of his pay he received in the early campaigns. He may, on some occasion, have safely violated Washington's orders against private robbery under the cover of war. He may have had secret dealings with the "Skinners" or other unattached marauders. In any case, his assured manner of offering Madge a passage to England with him, showed that he possessed ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens

... only for the sake of money, and care little whether their book is good or bad, provided it sells well. How many young people have been ruined by bad books, and how many more by foolish books! Boys, for example, read in some worthless book of desperate deeds of highway robbery or piracy, and are at once filled with the desire to imitate the hero of the tale. Young girls, on the other hand, are equally infatuated by the wonderful fortunes and adventures of some young woman whose life has been so vividly described in a trashy novel. As ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 4 (of 4) - An Explanation Of The Baltimore Catechism of Christian Doctrine • Thomas L. Kinkead

... us how simple we Scotch folk are. The London man swindled me out of my lawful room-rent and my Sunday velveteens; the Eirishers, as will be but too soon seen, made free with my hen-house, committing felonious robbery at the dead hour of night; and here a decent-looking old Welshman, with a pigtail tied with black tape, palmed a grand coat and waistcoat upon me, that were made away with by a man and his son, a devilish deal too long out of ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir

... don't empty every pocket, and then clear out of here, I'll see that you are accused of robbery; and when there's a flood like this they often hang looters to the lamp-posts, perhaps you know? The people won't stand for anything like that. Hurry and put everything back or I'll see that you land in the lock-up. Steve, be ready to step out and give ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie

... a Vote, One will protect the other—if it cares to. But if he'd close, by vote, the shops such snares to His tipple-tempted and intemperate throttle He robs himself of access to the bottle,— If robbery it's called—'tis not another, (Who is a swell, with cellars) his poor brother Deprives of that long-hackneyed, much-mouthed "glass." The British Workman is not quite an ass, And where he wants to whet (with beer) his throat, Where are you like to get your two-thirds Vote? Whether there's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various

... reminded him, that the garden and fruit were private property, and to take any thing from thence, without permission, was nothing less than being guilty of a robbery. He allowed that there might be a possibility of getting into the garden without being seen by the owner of it; but such a wicked action could not be concealed from Him who sees every action of our lives, ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin

... part of Europe and looked to Rome as their ancestor and original. But those who are about to displace them! Alas, whence do they come who begat them, from what have they issued out? I cannot answer; but I know that with all their faults, their sacrilege, robbery, and treason, Russell, Cavendish, Cecil and Talbot are English names, and they who bear them men of our blood, European, too, and of our civilisation. But who are those that now begin to fill their places? Aliens, Orientals and worse now received without ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton

... different in outline from his, and smaller, for Aaron was a man of colossal build. And as to his knowledge of the state in which the premises had been found, and his having so familiarly relied upon the fact of no robbery having taken place as an argument on his own behalf, he contended that he had himself been among the crowd that pushed into the house along with the magistrates; that, from his previous acquaintance with the rooms and their ordinary condition, a glance of the eye had been ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... against deeds of violence being done to seafaring men, as seafaring men can be themselves. I am of the same opinion as my mother was, when she was living. Fair trade, my mother used to say, but no robbery and no blows.' In the way of trade Miss Pleasant would have taken—and indeed did take when she could—as much as thirty shillings a week for board that would be dear at five, and likewise conducted the ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... also find, when we consider the statistics of crime generally (including sexual crime), that there is another tendency for minor climaxes in spring and autumn. Thus, in Italy, Penta, taking the statistics of nearly four thousand crimes (murder, highway robbery, and sexual offences), found the maximum in the first summer months, but there were also minor climaxes in spring and in August and September (Penta, Rivista Mensile di Psichiatria, 1899). In nearly all Europe (as is shown by a diagram ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... Territory an Indian worked hard all summer, and in the fall carried his grain to market, delivered it to an elevator, and than the owner turned around and refused to pay him, and the poor man had to go home without one cent. It was the worst kind of robbery. If that man had been a German, or Swede, or a howling Anarchist of any nation under the heavens, we would have protected him, but an Indian has no ...
— The American Missionary, Volume 42, No. 12, December, 1888 • Various

... great wrench to her. I felt it like robbery when she put the little fellow down on my lap and knelt over him, not able to get herself away, but saying that she was not fit to have him; she could not bear it if she made him hate her as Conrade did! I am glad she has had his first smile, ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the receipt brought back to him, there came a message that he was to go up to tell the master and the young gentlemen all about the robbery. ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge

... to enter the house on pretence of asking for charity. Warned off in the front, they had been discovered again at the back of the premises. Besides the annoyance complained of, Mr. Luker expressed himself as being under some apprehension that robbery might be contemplated. His collection contained many unique gems, both classical and Oriental, of the highest value. He had only the day before been compelled to dismiss a skilled workman in ivory carving from his employment (a native of India, as we understood), ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins

... out of some valuable mining property in the West, and that the son was little better than his parent. Dan had left the school in a hurry, and soon after this his father had been arrested in Albany for a daring office robbery, and was now in jail ...
— The Rover Boys out West • Arthur M. Winfield

... me, I'll catch you and manhandle you, and you'll die. You haven't very long to live, anyhow. Go! Imshi, Vootsak,—get out!" The man departed, staggering and dazed. Dick drew a long breath: "Phew! what a lawless lot these people are! The first thing a poor orphan meets is gang robbery, organised burglary! Think of the hideous blackness of that man's mind! Are ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... impoverished state of France, it seems for a time impossible that any system but that of robbery and confiscation, anything but the continued torture, which can be applied only by the engines of the revolution, can extort from its ruined inhabitants more than the means of supporting, in peace, the yearly expenditure of its Government. Suppose, then, the heir of the House ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones

... up there by the lake like a pirate’s treasure, it isn’t Pickering’s if he finds it. There are laws to protect even the dead from robbery!” I ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson

... hotbed of the slave-trade. It will be remarked that the exports from the Soudan are all natural productions. There is nothing to exhibit the industry or capacity of the natives; the ivory is the produce of violence and robbery; the hides are the simple sun-dried skins of oxen; the senna grows wild upon the desert; the gum arabic exudes spontaneously from the bushes of the jungle; and the bees'-wax is the produce of the only industrious creatures in that ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker

... to light that an extensive robbery had been committed. From the banker's person his diamond-studded gold watch, chain, and seals, his gold snuff-box, set with emeralds, a heavy cornelian seal ring set in gold, and his diamond studs and sleeve buttons were taken. A patent safe, ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth

... What we say about these Hindu ancestors gets little credit, as the people generally know nothing about them. We remind them that among themselves there have been tribes that have from generation to generation lived by thuggery and dacoity (murder and robbery). Ought the children of these murderers and robbers to walk in the ways of ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy

... Such covert robbery escapes the law for the reason which would have made a Jacques Collin of Frederick the Great, if, instead of dealing with provinces by means of battles, he had dealt in smuggled goods or transferable securities. The high politics of ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... severe against heresy, but brigandage was common, and the darker streets were unsafe at night to strangers. People were not infrequently robbed in their own doorways, and there was a recognized system of violent robbery known as "doorway robbing." The streets were very badly lighted, and the entrance halls on the ground floor were scarcely ever lighted, so that we always carried wax tapers to light ourselves up to ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James

... her liberty and secured a reward of one hundred pounds by pretending to give information of a plot formed by a low tavern-keeper, her master, and three negroes, to burn the city and murder the whites. This story was confirmed and amplified by an Irish prostitute convicted of a robbery, who, to recommend herself to mercy, reluctantly turned informer. Numerous arrests had been already made among the slaves and free blacks. Many others followed. The eight lawyers who then composed the bar of New York all assisted by turns in behalf of the prosecution. The prisoners, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various

... and imposture. If he has a desire to commit a base or a cruel action without remorse and with the applause of the spectators, he has only to throw the cloak of religion over it, and invoke Heaven to set its seal on a massacre or a robbery. At one time dirt, at another indecency, at another rapine, at a fourth rancorous malignity, is decked out and accredited in the garb of sanctity. The instant there is a flaw, a 'damned spot' to be concealed, ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... privilege to be detailed on such a party. Daily they returned mounted on all sorts of beasts, which were at once taken from them and appropriated to the general use; but the next day they would start out again on foot, only to repeat the experience of the day before. No doubt, many acts of pillage, robbery, and violence, were committed by these parties of foragers, usually called "bummers;" for I have since heard of jewelry taken from women, and the plunder of articles that never reached the commissary; but these acts were exceptional and incidental. I never heard of any cases of murder ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... a plan I had set at immediately the robbery was discovered. It would cut out the trick of reshipping at sea from some fishing craft or small boat. The reports were encouraging enough in that respect. We had the whole country as tight as a drum. But it was slender comfort when the Treasury was raising the devil for ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post

... when he got a five hundred dollar mortgage-grip on Pole's pasture meadow, he kept that butcher-man real uneasy. When you were all away, Swallow began to squeeze—what those lawyers call 'foreclose.' It's just some lawyer word for robbery." ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell

... despairing, the broken-hearted and the dying, had raised her to the height of an angel's quality among the very desperately poor and criminal classes;—the fiercest ruffians of the slums were docile in her presence and obedient to her command;—and many a bold plan of robbery,—many a wicked scheme of murder had been altogether foregone and abandoned through the intervention of Lotys, whose intellectual acumen, swift to perceive the savage instinct, or motive for crime, was equally swift to point out its uselessness as a means ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli

... sagacity. "That explains," he said, "why the rascal used this particular trick to draw us on by. If we had suspected him he could have shown the diamonds were real, and so escaped detection. It was a blind to draw us off from the fact of the robbery. He went to Paris to be out of the way when the discovery was made, and to get a clear day's start of us. What a consummate rogue! And to do me ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen

... highwaymen," contended her mother, "or worse. I have read how they shoot men for a pastime, and without even the excuse of robbery." ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower

... recommend unto you the repairs of the fortifications about Charleston, and the amending of the Negro Act, who are of late grown to that height of impudence, that there is scarce a day passes without some robbery or insolence, committed by them in one part or ...
— An Account of Some of the Principal Slave Insurrections, • Joshua Coffin

... in his garden, which bore golden apples, many of which were as large as a great ball of thread, and might have been worth many thousand roubles. It may be imagined that such fruit was not left uncounted, and that guards were stationed around night and day to prevent any attempt at robbery. Nevertheless one of the largest apples, valued at six thousand roubles, had been stolen every night for three nights running. The guards had neither seen the thief nor been able to discover any trace of him. It immediately occurred to Sharpeye ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby

... matter with us. Our friend's private conduct, so far as it does not concern us, is an affair of small moment. He can be as much of a roue as he chooses, so long as he respects our wives and daughters. He can put through a gigantic commercial robbery and we will acclaim his nerve and audacity, provided he is on the level with ourselves. That is the reason why cheating one's club members at cards is regarded as worse than stealing the funds belonging ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train

... were in arms, "so that in a few days incendiarism, robbery, and murder raged in several parts of the city. The cardinals besought the Count to surrender the castle to the Sacred College, withdraw his troops, and deliver Rome from the fear of his forces; and he, that he ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini

... three weeks previous to the time of his death. He had given no information as to where he had last rested, but, so far as Mosk knew, had dropped down from the sky. Certainly his conversation when he was intoxicated showed that he had travelled a great deal, and that his past was concerned with robbery, and bloodshed, and lawlessness; but the man had talked generally as any traveller might, had refrained from mentioning names, and altogether had spoken so loosely that nothing likely to lead to a tangible result could be gathered from his rambling discourses. He had paid ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... disarranged, it did not occur to them that the spot had been visited by robbers. The Baron was the last to leave and return to the ladies. Not till the servants came to pack up the plates and dishes, and knives and forks, was the robbery discovered. Just then Mynheer Bunckum, who had got tired of fishing, and had returned to the table, on hearing that several articles were ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston

... in Bounderby's bank at Coketown. He is educated at M'Choakumchild's "practical school," and becomes a general spy and informer. Bitzer finds out the robbery of the bank, and discovers the perpetrator to be Tom Gradgrind (son of Thomas Gradgrind, Esq., M.P.), informs against him, and gets promoted to his place.—C. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... Vol.]—The interior economy of Great Britain produced, within the circle of this year, nothing else worthy of historical regard, except a series of enormous crimes, arising from the profligacy of individuals, which reflected disgrace upon the morals and the polity of the nation. Rapine and robbery had domineered without intermission ever since the return of peace, which was attended with a reduction of the army and navy; but now crimes of a deeper die seemed to lift up their heads, in contempt of law ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... the immediate interference of the Swabian League, while her sons were too young to be personally held guilty. Yet this might involve ruin and confiscation; and, apart from all consequences, she bitterly grieved that the stain of robbery should have fallen on her ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge

... a brisk pace to the station at W——, was greeted with cheers, for the news had come from Fort Faraway the day before of Dave Dockery's death, the killing of one passenger, wounding of another, and the robbery of the coach. ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham

... a relief, and orders were given accordingly. It seemed a cruel moment to tell him of young Hornblower's evasion and robbery, but the police wanted the description of the articles; and, in fact, nothing would have so brought home to him that, though Compton might not appreciate minutiae of Greek criticism, yet the habit of diligence, of which it was the test, might make a difference there. The lingering self- justification ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge

... producer. "Why, don't you know that the law don't permit us to show an actual robbery on the ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers

... which they had sold; bumboat-men and bumboat-women showing their long bills, and demanding or coaxing for payment; other people from the shore, with hundreds of small debts; and the sailors' wives, sticking close to them, and disputing every bill presented, as an extortion or a robbery. There was such bawling and threatening, laughing and crying—for the women were all to quit the ship before sunset—at one moment a Jew was upset, and all his hamper of clothes tossed into the hold; at another, a ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat

... and stroked their faces often with its paws, but the face of Puglioni Sin had kissed all over the mouth and chin. Their food was robbery and their pastime murder. All of them had incurred the sorrow of God and the enmity of man. They sat at a table with a pack of cards before them, all greasy with the marks of cheating thumbs. And ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany

... "It's really robbery," came Emma McChesney's voice from the next room. "Only a New York agent could have the nerve to do it. I've a friend who lives in Chicago—Mary Cutting. You've heard me speak of her. Has a flat on the north side there, just ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber

... perplexity, for he had no surmise of Carducha's treachery. At last, an insolent soldier, nephew to the alcalde, stepped up to him, saying "Look at the dirty gipsy thief! I will lay a wager he will give himself airs as if he were an honest man, and deny the robbery, though the goods have been found in his hands. Good luck to whoever sends the whole pack of you to the galleys. A fitter place it will be for this scoundrel, where he may serve his Majesty, instead ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... "A fair robbery!" laughed Barnes, "as Dick Turpin said when he robbed the minister who robbed the king who robbed the people! A happy thought that, turning the helmet into a collection box! It tided us over; it tided ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... the sale-price of Brandenburg with all its lands and honors—multiplying it perhaps by four or six to bring out its effective amount in current coin. Dog cheap, it must be owned, for size and capability; but in the most waste condition, full of mutiny, injustice, anarchy, and highway robbery; a purchase that might have proved dear enough to another ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... the gist of these remarks to the French captain, and at the same time gave him a hint to exhibit a proper amount of righteous indignation over the robbery; which he did to perfection, wringing his hands, rumpling his hair, and pacing the deck with the air of a madman while he poured out anathemas enough upon O'Gorman and his gang to sink the entire party to the nethermost depths of perdition. ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood

... talked of these: And I (with inward purpose sly To shield my purse from Christmas trees And stockings and wild robbery ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier

... play in the dusty square of grass which, on the strength of two orange trees and a palm, was called a garden. He thought nothing of it now, when she nodded in her polite little way, and opened the door for herself. Five minutes later, he was reading of a delicious jewel robbery, which had happened in a tunnel near Nice, and had ...
— Rosemary - A Christmas story • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... interested in this subject of dreams, I wondered whether, if she were subject to periods of cardiac decompensation of varying degree, she did not have dreams of a terrifying nature (about burglars, robbery and the like), because of embarrassment of breathing during sleep, resulting from her cardiac insufficiency and consequent circulatory and respiratory disturbance. I asked her whether she had been dreaming much of late. She told me she had had a dream ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10

... girl, the fun leaving her eyes and her lips becoming grave, "I do not like the noises at night. I have not suggested the police, because robbery is not the motive." ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath

... Chatham, and the want of force in Lord Rockingham. In the nation at large, the late violent ferment had been followed by as remarkable a deadness and vapidity, and Burke himself had to admit a year or two later that any remarkable robbery at Hounslow Heath would make more conversation than all the disturbances of America. The duke of Grafton went out, and Lord North became the head of a government, which lasted twelve years (1770-1782), and brought about more than all the disasters that Burke had foretold as ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... Paul, dragging him along toward the doors of the station. "Hi, Jim!" he called to a man in plain clothes, evidently a detective. "Grab the other fellow; will you? I've got the pickpocket!" and he nodded to Mr. Bunn, who could not seem to understand that from a simulated robbery it had turned out to be a ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Rocky Ranch - Or, Great Days Among the Cowboys • Laura Lee Hope

... to do by means of his officers (the sheriffs) dealing with them one after another, which was a troublesome job; for the men were stiff-necked and quite disinclined to part with their money; and the robbery having to be done on the spot, so to say, encountered all sorts of opposition: and, in fact, it was the money needs both of baron, bishop, and king which had been the chief instrument in furthering the progress of the towns. The towns would be pressed by their lords, king, or baron, ...
— Signs of Change • William Morris

... vomiting men. The crash of glass had carried far, and visions of a bank robbery filled many brains as their owners raced toward the doorway where Trevison stood, the muzzle of his pistol jammed ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer

... certain to run off; it isn't likely he'll go upon his trial, and you'll be fixed with the bail. Don't tell me there's no trial in the matter, because I know there is; it's for something more than quarrelling with the policeman that he was locked up. People aren't locked up for that. No, it's for robbery, or something ...
— Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures • Douglas Jerrold

... absurd, that the duel is out of date, that there is no real difference between the aristocratic duel and the drunken brawl in the pot-house, and yet we shall not stop, we shall go there and fight. So there is some force stronger than our reasoning. We shout that war is plunder, robbery, atrocity, fratricide; we cannot look upon blood without fainting; but the French or the Germans have only to insult us for us to feel at once an exaltation of spirit; in the most genuine way we shout 'Hurrah!' and rush to ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... The damage and robbery inflicted by the people of Mindanao in these islands could have been prevented if the garrison of Spaniards in that island, which held the pirates in check, had not been recalled. At present the need is all the greater, as they are encouraged by their victories, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson

... dice the preceding day. He found Mr. Bagshot in expectation of his bail, and, with a countenance full of concern, which he could at any time, with wonderful art, put on, told him that all was discovered; that the count knew him, and intended to prosecute him for the robbery, "had not I exerted (said he) my utmost interest, and with great difficulty prevailed on him in case you refund the money—" "Refund the money!" cryed Bagshot, "that is in your power: for you know what an inconsiderable part of it fell to my share." "How!" ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding

... came to the conclusion that we were directly under the road-bed, and that the only opening of any kind was the door through which we had passed. I thought of that door and the face of the man behind it. For what purpose save robbery and murder was such a room designed? I could not confront the certainty of violence with a jest, as Ajax did, but I was of his opinion otherwise expressed: we had been trapped like rats in a blind drain, and would be ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell

... said the guide, after the first few words of salutation, "that my friend still delights in war and robbery." ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne

... the other charges against him, it inclines me to great distrust of his moral principles. Be that as it may, he managed his stock of provisions very thriftily,—burying it in the earth, and eating a portion of it whenever he felt an appetite. If he insists upon living by highway robbery, it would be well to make him share his booty with us. ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... a worried and preoccupied look on his face that he could not conceal. "She's terribly broken up by the suddenness of it all," he murmured as he sank into an armchair. "The shock has been too much for her. In fact, I hadn't the heart to tell her anything about the robbery, poor girl." Then in a moment he asked, "Any more ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve

... steadily as my helper. Whatever men I hired, although satisfactory while they worked, would eventually have something else to do, either pearl fishing, or hunting, or long trips seaward in their proas, they said for fishing, but I thought, and found later I had thought rightly, for robbery. Even Poljensio used to claim time, now and then, when he said the conditions of the water and weather were favorable for finding pearl oysters, to go and dive for those ...
— Anting-Anting Stories - And other Strange Tales of the Filipinos • Sargent Kayme

... is ours! Here have we, in our time, been compelled to give the patronage of our countenance to all sorts of rascality—have been forced to support robbery, swindling, extortion—but it won't do to think of—give me the pot. Oh! dear, it had suited better with my conscience, had I been doomed to draw ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 14, 1841 • Various

... voice if there were present any spirits. By industriously cracking my big-toe joint, I was enabled to represent at once the presence of a numerous assembly of these worthies. Then I inquired if any one of them had been present when the robbery was effected. A prompt double-knock replied in the affirmative. I may say here, by the way, that the unanimity of the spirits as to their use of two knocks for yes, and one for no, is a very remarkable point; and shows, if it shows anything, how perfect ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various

... up from Brahmanas and Kshatriyas, the Vaisyas, and the Sudras, that reside in the dominions of (Arya) kings? What are those duties again to the observance of which kings like ourselves should force those tribes that subsist by robbery? I desire to hear all this. O illustrious god, instruct me. O chief of all the deities, thou art the friend ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... to have the case judged, but to take Tripoli. Hand it over—in twenty-four hours." The Turkish Government said: "At least make it possible for us to face our own people. Call it a Protectorate; give us the shadow of sovereignty. Otherwise it is not robbery—to which we should submit—but gratuitous degradation; we should abdicate before the eyes of our own people. We will do anything you like." "In that case," said Italy, "we will rob; and we ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... those auburn ringlets, and blue eyes, and delicate looks, quite daunted, while they fascinated me. I don't know what put it into my head, but I thought, all at once, that I would kiss her! It would take a long acquaintance to arrive at such a boon, but I might seize upon it by sheer robbery. Nobody knew me here. I would just step in, snatch a kiss, mount my horse, and ride off. She would not be the worse for it; and that kiss—oh! I should die if I did ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving

... Carrol and I went into the prison, and spoke with most of them afterwards. We then went to the Alliance, and from there to 4 Canonbury Place, to intercede with two ladies who had prosecuted their servant for robbery, but they gave her such a bad character that ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore

... illustrations of what He enjoins, the first of which refers to insults such as contumelious blows on the cheek, which are perhaps the hardest not to meet with a flash of anger and a returning stroke; the second of which refers to assaults on property, such as an attempt at legal robbery of a man's undergarment; the third of which refers to forced labour, such as impressing a peasant to carry military or official baggage or documents—a form of oppression only too well known under Roman rule in Christ's ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... of the Western press had denounced the confiscation as a "British outrage" and as "robbery by prize court"; but the more moderate Eastern view was that, while American business men had an undoubted right to feed the German armies, if they could, they were in the position of gamblers who had lost if ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

... the money wheah it belongs," the Texan drawled. "Gentlemen, when I said I wasn't a gamblin' man, I meant it. I nevah gamble. But when I saw that this game was not a gamble, but just a cool robbery, I sat in." ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens



Words linked to "Robbery" :   job, caper, robbery conviction, rip-off, larceny, dacoity, robbery suspect, holdup, pillage, rolling, plundering, hijacking, highway robbery, looting, pillaging, theft, rob, stickup, thieving



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