robber

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English robbere, also robbour,^[2][3] borrowed from Anglo-Norman robbere and robeor,^[4][5][2][6] an agent noun from rober (“to rob, steal, pillage”), the source of rob.^[4][5][7] The OED explains the two groups of English forms by the two French ones: those in -ere go back to Latin nominatives in -ātor, those in -eor and -our to the oblique forms in -ātōrem.^[5] The French verb goes back through post-classical Latin to a Germanic word, the base of reave;^[5] Etymonline gives it as Proto-West Germanic *rauba (“booty”), also the source of Old High German roubon (“to rob”) and Old English reafian.^[4] The OED compares robador, roubador and rubatore.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A person who commits robbery, in early use also a plunderer or despoiler: about 1175, in a note in a manuscript at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.^[5] Etymonline dates it to the late 12th century,^[4] and Dictionary.com to 1125–75.^[8] The Anglo-Norman word is recorded from about 1141, already for a thief, a looter and a pirate.^[9]

Semantic evolution

From 1440 it was also used of a pirate, a sense now archaic;^[5] it has been used with of since 1465 for the place, person or thing robbed.^[5] Chaucer used it twice, in the form robbour.^[3] Johnson (1755) defined it as a thief who takes by force or steals by secret means, a plunderer.^[10] Later uses transferred the idea of taking what is not one's own: a bee that steals honey from another hive (1622), an ore impurity that makes refining harder (1670, now obsolete), and a crop that impoverishes the soil (1777).^[5] Robber baron was used of plundering feudal lords from 1831, and since the 1870s of corrupt, greedy financiers of the Gilded Age.^[4][7] In Northumberland, Suffolk and Cornwall robber-knight was a name for the children's game "Three Dukes".^[11]

Timeline

• c. 1175 – a person who commits robbery; a plunderer.^[5]
• 1440 – a pirate (now archaic).^[5]
• 1465 – with of, the robber of a place or person.^[5]
• 1622 – a robber bee.^[5]
• 1670 – in mining, an impurity that makes ore harder to refine (obsolete).^[5]
• 1755 – Johnson: a thief, a plunderer.^[10]
• 1777 – in farming, a crop that impoverishes the soil.^[5]
• 1831 – robber baron, a plundering feudal lord.^[4]
• 1870s – robber baron, a ruthless financier.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A person who robs; one who commits robbery: The robbers fled with the takings from the till.^[2][5]
2. A honeybee worker that steals honey from a hive not its own; a robber bee.^[2][5]
3. A miner who removes the coal pillars left as supports after regular mining is done.^[2]
4. In farming, a crop that impoverishes the soil, or a farmer whose methods do so.^[5]
5. robber baron: a feudal lord who lived by plundering; in later use, a ruthless and greedy magnate.^[7][4]

Word family

• grave robber
• robber baron

Related words

• rob
• robbery
• reave
• bereave

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
10. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)