Green’s Dictionary of Slang

see under blind adv.¹

(orig. US) to have a relationship with someone much younger than oneself.

1897		Little Falls Wkly Transcript (MN) 3 Sept. 2/2: A certain young fellow [...] took a little Fargo girl over the river [...] The girl’s father [...] didn’t do a thing but smash the young fellow’s face [...] If a few more mashers who are trying to rob the cradle get horse-whipped, the social atmosphere will improve.
1907		Sequachee Valley News (TN) 25 Apr. 2/3: John Grantham says he don’t want to rob the cradle when he married. He said he wanted a girl that raised her self.
1913		Sport (Adelaide) 29 Nov. 4/1: Why doesn’t Len B. ake a big tart to the pictures. Don’t rob the cradle yet, Len.
1922		Morn. Tulsa Dly World 12 Mar. 27/2: She criticizes older girls, so-called ‘vamps’ for attempting to rob the cradle.
1934		(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Young Manhood in Studs Lonigan (1936) 366: She looked damn young. Christ, he’d be robbing the cradle here.
1953		L. Uris Battle Cry (1964) 84: You must be crazy [...] You’re really robbing the cradle.
1955		Mad mag. Aug.–Sept. 26: We call it ‘robbing the cradle’. For the simple fact is, Pocahontas at the time was a tender, 12 years of age.
1961		H. Ellison ‘Lady Bug, Lady Bug’ in Gentleman Junkie 46: I am not known [...] as a lofty example to young womanhood [but] I am not that depraved that I rob cradles.
1983		Eble Campus Sl. Mar. 5: rob the cradle – to date someone several years younger than yourself.
1999		Eble Campus Sl. Nov.

1. (US tramp) to steal food delivered to people’s doorsteps early in the morning.

1930

‘Dean Stiff’ Milk and Honey Route 212: Robbing the mail – Snatching food and milk delivered at the doorstep early in the morning.

2. (US tramp) for one tramp to steal (the choicest items) from a parcel of food given to a group.

1931		Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 160: Robbing The Mail. – Eating the pastry or cake from a ‘lump’ or ‘hand out,’ and said of the tramp who, foraging for food to be eaten with another or by a group, deliberately robs the parcel of its choicest bits before handing it over for a division.
1935		J. Conroy World to Win 88: You little rat! Bring me back a bald-headed lump, will you? Robbin’ the mail, eh? Where’s the rest of it?

the vagina.

1890–1904

Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

(Aus.) mind your own business.

1941		Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl.
1943		Western Mail (Perth) 1 Apr. 9/3: Text book stuff. Who's observing for this battery! Who-who's robbing this coach?
1951		(con. 1941) E. Lambert Twenty Thousand Thieves 130: Who’s robbing this coach? Do you want to hear the news or not?
1955		N. Pulliam I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 241/2: who’s robbing the coach? – ‘you keep out of this’ or ‘who asked you to butt into this?’.
1984		Partridge DSUE (8th edn).
1986		R. Beckett Dinkum Aussie Dict. 57: Who’s robbing this coach?: A warning to someone to mind their own business.