rob Peter to pay Paul

1. To harm one person in order to do good to another; by extension, to use money or resources set aside for one purpose for a different one.

Idioms and Phrases

Take from one to give to another, shift resources. For example, They took out a second mortgage on their house so they could buy a condo in Florida—they're robbing Peter to pay Paul . Although legend has it that this expression alludes to appropriating the estates of St. Peter's Church, in Westminster, London, to pay for the repairs of St. Paul's Cathedral in the 1800s, the saying first appeared in a work by John Wycliffe about 1382.