rob Peter to pay Paul

动词 v.
中文释义

英文释义

动词 v.
  1. To use resources that legitimately belong to or are needed by one party in order to satisfy a legitimate need of another party, especially within the same organization or group; to solve a problem in a way that makes another problem worse, producing no net gain. idiomatic
    — [I]t would be robbing Peter to pay Paul, for the government to pay a stamp-duty to itself.

词形变化

robs Peter to pay Paul present,singular,third-person robbing Peter to pay Paul participle,present robbed Peter to pay Paul participle,past robbed Peter to pay Paul past borrow from Peter to pay Paul alternative

词源

Unknown. Sometimes claimed to refer to Church taxes paid to Westminster Abbey (originally called Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster) that were sent to repair St. Paul's Cathedral in the mid 1500s, though records exist of the phrase since about 1450.
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