/rɒb/
[verb] To take something from a person or place by force or threat, without permission. It can also mean to unfairly take away something that someone deserves.
The word 'rob' shares its ancient root with 'robe' — both descend from a word meaning 'to strip' someone of what they wear.
The word 'rob' entered English in the 13th century, borrowed from Old French 'rober', meaning 'to steal' or 'to plunder'. Old French itself inherited this verb from a Germanic source — the Frankish word 'raubōn', which meant 'to seize' or 'to strip by force'. This Frankish root was part of the Proto-Germanic family and is closely related to Old High German 'roubon', which carried the same sense of violent plundering.
What makes this etymology especially striking is the relationship between 'rob' and 'robe'. The two words are genuine cousins. The Proto-Germanic root 'raub-' originally referred to things seized or stripped from an enemy — including their clothing. From this same root, Old French developed 'robe', meaning a garment, because clothes were among the most valuable items a victor could strip from a defeated enemy. So Frankish 'raubōn' → Old French 'rober' (to steal) gave us 'rob', while Frankish 'raub' → Old French 'robe' (plunder, then garment) gave us 'robe'. The elegant dress and the criminal act are, in origin, the same idea.
The same Germanic family also gave English the word 'reave', an older and now largely archaic verb meaning to plunder or carry off by force. It survives most famously in 'bereave' — which follows the path Proto-Germanic 'biraubōjan' → Old English 'berēafian', meaning to deprive someone of something precious. We now use 'bereave' almost exclusively for the loss of a loved one through death, but its core meaning — to be robbed of something — is entirely literal at heart.
When 'rob' settled into Middle English, it competed for a while with native Old English words for theft, such as 'stelan' (to steal) and 'niman' (to take). Over time, 'rob' established a slightly different shade of meaning: where 'steal' focuses on the thing taken, 'rob' focuses on the person or place targeted. You rob a bank; you steal money. This grammatical distinction, subtle but consistent, has held firm in English for centuries and is one of the clearest examples of how two near-synonyms carve out their own territories.
By the 14th and 15th centuries, 'rob' had extended beyond physical theft into figurative territory — you could rob someone of their hope, their dignity, or their chance at success. This broader sense proved remarkably durable. Today we freely say that a bad referee decision 'robbed' a team of victory, or that illness 'robbed' someone of their youth. The original violence of the word has softened into metaphor, yet its emotional punch — the sense of something unjustly taken — remains fully intact.