highway robbery
1
5.8
- noun
- /ˈhaɪweɪ ˈrɑːbəri/
- Informal
:
precio abusivo
- She said that paying $50 for parking downtown was highway robbery.
Examples
-
It's highway robbery to pay so much for such a simple meal.
-
The price they charge for bottled water at the stadium is highway robbery.
-
This price is nothing short of highway robbery!
-
Many consumers feel that the fees charged by airlines are highway robbery.
-
Many customers complained that the new fees for services are just highway robbery.
-
After seeing the prices at that restaurant, I realized it was a clear case of highway robbery.
-
Charging thirty dollars for a sandwich seems like highway robbery to me.
Synonyms
10
6.6
Charging too much money for basic items when people have no other choice
3
7.5
A very high, unfair price for goods or services
1
6.9
An unfair price that is much too high
How Expensive
- Specialized
10
6.6
- Informal
1
5.8
- Informal
31
7.2
4
4.6
31
3.5
Surface Forms
Morphology
highway + robbery
The phrase is a figurative extension of the literal words 'highway' and 'robbery' — a B1 learner who knows those words can likely infer a theft/metaphor of unfairness, but the specific conventional meaning of 'charging an unreasonably high price' is an idiomatic pragmatic shift rather than a direct compositional derivation. Because the pricing sense depends on cultural/conventional usage and context to be fully understood, it is partially predictable but not fully transparent.
Etymology
Highway robbery is now used to complain about very high prices; the image is the same — paying too much feels like a robbery on the highway, so people call an expensive price 'unfair' or 'to charge too much'.