What does daylight robbery mean

Did you spot a typo? Grammarly's app will help with: 1 Avoiding spelling errors 2 Correcting grammar errors 3 Finding better words This free browser extension works with webmail, social media, and texting apps as well as online forms and Microsoft Office documents, like Word and Teams. Download the app. I think that it comes from highwaymen who held up travellers in broad daylight - a very brazen act which was obvious to anyone looking on and made identification of the culprit easier.

It therefore came to mean a blatent and obvious act of removing someones money by exceedingly obvious foul play. Such as parking meters in Central London.

Simon, Hinchley Wood UK I recall a warning sign on a soft drink vending machine in the state of Queensland which showed different penalties for the crime of theft from the machine. The penalty for night-time theft was double that for day-time so perhaps there is a legal origin for "daylight robbery"?

The former is simply stealing, the latter is stealing with some form of violence or threat of violence against a person. Also, as 'daylight' added to 'robbery' is grammatically an intensifier, the Adelaide example points in the wrong direction, with daylight 'robery' being the less serious.

Mondaq uses cookies on this website. By using our website you agree to our use of cookies as set out in our Privacy Policy. When it was first coined, the meaning of 'daylight robbery' was literally that daylight was being stolen. This may seem strange, given that daylight cannot be stolen. Having exhausted all other options, he and his advisors devised a tax whereby houses with more windows would pay a greater amount of money. Because of this, people would board up their windows to avoid paying the tax.

This of course meant that there would be less daylight coming into their houses. Hence the phrase, 'Daylight Robbery'. It was levied on the windows or openings of a building. The more windows a building had, the more tax they paid. It was essentially a progressive tax whereby the wealthier member of society paid the most as they tended to have larger houses and more windows on those houses.

Indeed, many rich individuals took paying the tax as a badge of honour. The greater tax they paid meant that they were seen as having more wealth and status. In fact, some houses were built with more windows for that specific purpose. Of course, there were also countervailing thoughts at the time. Many people chose to build houses with fewer windows. Some even took to covering up windows that previously existed to avoid paying the tax. These buildings still exist in some parts of England to this day, as the image above shows.

Modern incarnations of the saying, "Daylight Robbery', are used in a more figurative sense. Generally, one would think a robbery would be committed surreptitiously, under the cover of night.

However, to commit a robbery in daylight would be particularly brazen. Even the best criminal lawyers for robbery would struggle to come up with a reasonable defence.

It is a figurative phrase that associates an instance of unfair trading with actual robbery. Not just any old robbery, but one so unashamed and obvious that it is committed in broad daylight.

It would be nice to locate the origin of this phrase, so let's go back to the s. Like many English monarchs, William III was short of money, which he attempted to rectify by the introduction of the much-despised Window Tax. As the name suggests, this was a tax levied on the windows or window-like openings of a property.

The details were much amended over time, but the tax was levied originally on all dwellings except cottages. The upper classes, having the largest houses, paid the most.