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Glite Dictionary
daylight robbery

daylight robbery

1 6.9
An unfair price that is much too high
  • noun
  • /ˈdeɪˌlaɪt ˈrɒbəri/
  • Informal
: robo a plena luz del día

This book is actual daylight robbery.

Examples

  • - It's daylight robbery!

    Saving Grace (2000)

  • It's daylight robbery!

    Early Man (2018)

  • That is daylight robbery!

    Blog text (28)

  • This is the most shameless, most obvious daylight robbery, grift of all time.

  • That's daylight robbery!

    Everest (2015)

  • The prices at this restaurant are daylight robbery; I can't believe how much they charge for a simple meal.

  • Buying tickets for that concert felt like daylight robbery; they were outrageously expensive for just a few hours of entertainment.

  • Many consumers believe that charging high fees for essential services is nothing short of daylight robbery.

Synonyms

price gouging
vsdaylight robbery
  • Specialized
12 6.6

Charging too much money for basic items when people have no other choice

is an idiomatic complaint about outrageously high cost rather than a specific legal practice
highway robbery
vsdaylight robbery
  • Informal
4 5.8

Charging someone a very high, unfair price for something ordinary

can mean an act of blatant theft rather than only an expensive sale
extortion
vsdaylight robbery
2 7.5

A very high, unfair price for goods or services

is a broader informal complaint including theft as well as extreme pricing

Surface Forms

daylight robbery singular
daylight robberies plural

Morphology

daylight + robbery

The constituent meanings ('daylight' + 'robbery') suggest a brazen or blatant theft, so learners can partially infer that something unfair or excessive is being criticised. However, mapping that image to the conventional sense 'an outrageously high price' requires a cultural/idiomatic leap beyond literal composition, so it is not fully predictable to a B1 learner.

Etymology

Daylight robbery comes from the picture of someone stealing in full daylight — a very bold, open robbery. So we call a price or charge a 'daylight robbery' when it feels like a 'clear, unfair theft' or is 'unfairly expensive'.