rob Peter to pay Paul

Cultural  

1. To harm one person in order to do good to another; by extension, to use money or resources set aside for one purpose for a different one.

---

rob Peter to pay Paul Idioms  

1. Take from one to give to another, shift resources. For example, They took out a second mortgage on their house so they could buy a condo in Florida—they're robbing Peter to pay Paul. Although legend has it that this expression alludes to appropriating the estates of St. Peter's Church, in Westminster, London, to pay for the repairs of St. Paul's Cathedral in the 1800s, the saying first appeared in a work by John Wycliffe about 1382.

---

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

rob Peter to pay Paul

She also used warm hubs, but found she still had "to rob Peter to pay Paul during some months" in order to cover rent and other household bills.

From BBC ● Mar. 31, 2024

But what if, instead of believing that most of us must eternally "rob Peter to pay Paul," we imagine a world in which everyone was in and no one out?

From Salon ● Sep. 16, 2022

“I have to rob Peter to pay Paul and someone will go unpaid.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 19, 2018

“They rob Peter to pay Paul to get by and that only works a year or two,” Hund said.

From Washington Times ● Dec. 3, 2016

To rob Peter to pay Paul; to borrow of one man to pay another: styled also manoeuvring the apostles.

From 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue by Grose, Francis