Yes, you're right. The same goes for Dutch too: Roof (theft, robbery), straatroof, roofmoord. Even our "diefachtige ekster" (the stealing magpie) is almost the same in both meaning and form.Luz4711 wrote:May I say some?
Stealing - to take something and the one you take it from does not notice it while you are doing it.
Raub (robbery) - to take something from somebody mostly with physical violence (Strassenraub for example - sometimes with murdering = Raubmord) - and the one you take it from does notice it.
That's why we call them Raubvögel which does not count for Magpies, they steal. Therefore "Diebische Elster".
The difference between the two crimes also important for insurance matters and the years you are going to jail getting caught doing this or the other.
But what I wanted to say is that the oldest, original meaning of "raub" and "roof" and all other cognates in all Indoeuropean languages was "to snatch". And the meaning "to steal" is a younger one, especially in compounds like Strassenraub and Raubmord and the likes, because people had a descriptive word for those particular birds they saw ("snatch birds"), long before there even were things like roads (Strassen). At the time this Indoeuropean word "*reup" evolved, from which the modern "raub", "roof" etc derived, people were hunter/gatherers and it is a known fact that actual theft and robbery is virtually unknown among hunter/gatherer communities. Theft and robbery first became common when people gave up their hunter/gatherer life and became farmers. From that time comes the secondary meaning "to steal", for example for snatching a tool from your neighbour, and later on the meaning broadened even more and became "to take away without permission", regardless how fast or slow that snatch actually was.