Robberies

How to spell robberies

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce robberies

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does robberies mean?

1. nounInstances of taking property unlawfully from a person or place, typically using force or the threat of force.

Robberies in a sentence

• A string of bank robberies kept the detectives working late.

• The report listed several armed robberies across the city last month.

Where does robberies come from?

Language of origin: French

This is the plural of 'robbery', which English took from the Old French 'roberie', meaning the act of stealing by force. That noun was built on the verb 'rober', 'to rob' or 'to plunder', which the French themselves had borrowed from a Germanic source related to the old word 'reave' (to seize or strip away by violence). The original sense carried a strong flavour of looting and despoiling, not the quieter idea of mere theft. The word settled into English in the 1200s and 1300s, when much legal and military vocabulary arrived through French. The doubled 'b' reflects the short, stressed vowel in 'rob', and when 'robbery' is pluralised the final 'y' shifts to 'ies', which is the spelling step most likely to trip a writer.

How the word is built

• robb- (from rob: to take unlawfully)
• -er (forming the act/noun robbery)
• -ies (plural of -y)