a share or amount taken or received illicitly, as in connection with a public enterprise.
a share, as of profits.
a discount in the price of a commodity.
We got a 20 percent rake-off on the dishwasher.
1885–90, noun use of verb phrase rake off
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
But the men with no fingerprints won’t permit it, those athletic directors and presidents who have subverted college athletics into a rake-off while pretending to govern them.
From Washington Post • Feb. 21, 2019
In the days when there were as many as 25 ships in the harbor, the capataces' rake-off amounted to $25,000 a week.
From Time Magazine Archive
Theatre treasurers, as well as a number of managers, receive from the agencies a rake-off of anywhere from 25� to $2 a ticket for preferred locations.
From Time Magazine Archive
Their proposition was to get the manufacturers Government contracts in return for a 3% rake-off.
From Time Magazine Archive
Isn't this a monumental rake-off for a non-profesh?
From The Statesmen Snowbound by Fitzgerald, Robert
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
