What does honour among thieves mean

From our having mentioned him [Madan] as the leader or commander of a gang, perhaps some of our readers may conclude, that he assumed to himself an absolute power over the rest; and that like OTHER commanders , he took to himself more than an equal allowance of the plunder they in conjunction made: but we can assure our readers, that this is not the unjust practice among thieves , who all of them agree, that, as the danger and labour in acquiring the spoils is the same to all, that the profits arising from them should be equitably divided; and in fact, for any one to cheat the rest in the division of the profits, is not easily practicable, as they have all equally access to the person who buys the goods they have stolen.

It sometimes happens which is a very extraordinary circumstance indeed, that one rascal will take, in the way of trade , advantage of another; but it as constantly follows, that he is as generally reprobated for the perfidy of his conduct, never losing sight of that adage , which says, there is "honour among thieves.

I suspect that the adages apply to different situations. That there is honor among thieves refers to honorable dealing based on business sense: if you try to cheat your business partners, they will never forget it, and your reputation in the business will be ruined.

But if one thief is accused of being a thief, nothing is more natural than for that person to deflect attention to someone else, equally blameworthy, with whom he or she is not in league. The earliest Google Books match for the expression of the counter-proverb, "There is no honour among thieves" is from the early s.

There are degrees of honor. It is a common saying, that " there is honor among thieves "—but this is not the sort of honor that honorable men would aim at: and com[modore] Porter, in calling Hillyar "one of the most honorable of British naval officers ," expressed exactly the same idea as if he had said that H. Porter's opinion of those is notorious to all men. A History of the Gaming Houses, and Gamesters of the Metropolis includes this three-part top-of-page summary header on page Well worthy of remark is the fact, that his two good friends who had worked so cordially in this foolish tavern-keeper's ruin at the beginning of the week, when they came near and found B-rry in so much trouble, they made good their retreat in whole skin, leaving him to battle his way out as well as he was able, and affording one more proof that the adage is untrue which says "There is honor among thieves.

The saying, ' There is honour among thieves, but none among gamblers ,' is very well antithetically spoken, but not true in fact : none are more disjointed than are those gangs, inter se , and upon this chord should our police regulations ever thrum.

The notion, at least, behind the expression "there is honor among thieves" is ancient, and it is expressed inexactly by English writers as far back as Daniel Defoe in A pamphlet published in describes "there is honour among thieves" as an "adage," so the familiar wording must be considerably older than that date. The counter-proverb, "there is no honour among thieves" is somewhat younger—at least in Google Books search results, with an exact occurrence in after earlier instances in which writers denied the assertion that honor did exist among thieves.

The original proverb probably arose out of an awareness of the widespread and rigorously observed code of silence among thieves with regard to incriminating a fellow thief, or from a vague knowledge of the equitable sharing of spoils that was common among confederates in a theft; and the counter-proverb, from an insistence that any such code usually fell apart in extremis and a sense that thieves really couldn't trust their fellow thieves not to steal from them if they could.

It is also used to express that the breaking down of such a code of ethics seems inevitable. I love the closely related quote from J. Which carries a similar meaning as your second form No honour among thieves. This derived form by me makes sense, too:.

I think both forms make sense and do not actually contradict each other. They are not opposites. Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top.

Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. Is there honour among thieves or not? Ask Question. Asked 10 years, 1 month ago. Active 5 years, 3 months ago. Viewed 48k times. One of them is: There is honour among thieves.

Another is: No honour among thieves. Rodrigo: Well, the police arrested him because he was part of a crime ring selling drugs. The police offered him a deal. If he just tells them who the leader of the gang is, and where to find him, they will let my brother go. I asked him why, and he claimed it was honor among thieves.

In the example below, two friends are discussing the criminal past that one of them had. Definition When you say there is honor among thieves, this means that even among criminals there is honor and that they do not commit crimes against each other. Example s The gangsters had a strong respect for their old boss which demonstrate that there is honor among thieves. A list of Phrasal Verbs Phrasal verbs are generally used in spoken English and informal texts.

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