Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Robbery usually of travelers on or near a public road.
- noun Informal The exaction of an exorbitantly high price or fee.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun Robbery committed on the public roads.
- noun An excessively high price or fee; -- used especially in situations where the buyer has little or no choice but to buy the item offered.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun literally, historical The act of
robbing atraveler on a public road. - noun idiomatic Said of
excessive orexorbitant prices.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun robbery of travellers on or near a public road
- noun an exorbitant price
Etymologies
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Examples
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trivet commented on the word highway robbery
When you're stuck on a 5-hour flight with no food because you had to run from one end of the airport to another due to a delayed arrival and they try to sell you a $3 bag of m&ms to go with your 'complementary' ounce of warm soda busily melting away 17 ice cubes.
February 21, 2007
uselessness commented on the word highway robbery
No, that's skyway robbery. Highway robbery is the price of gas. :-)
February 21, 2007