Burglary is about getting in: breaking into a building or vehicle with intent to steal, even if no one is home. Robbery is about force: taking property directly from a person by violence or threat. A break-in while the house is empty is a burglary; a mugging at knifepoint is a robbery.
The core difference
Burglary hinges on unlawful entry, while robbery hinges on force or the threat of force against a person.
- burglary — breaking into a building or vehicle with intent to steal: Police are investigating a string of burglaries in the neighbourhood.
- robbery — taking property from someone by force or threat: The gang was arrested for a string of armed robberies.
How to tell them apart
Think of burglary as a crime against a place and robbery as a crime against a person. A burglar typically wants to avoid confrontation altogether, slipping in while nobody is around. A robber, by definition, confronts someone directly and uses force or the threat of it to take what they want.
The mix-up shows up most often in casual news reporting, where the words get swapped loosely, and in everyday speech, where robbery also does informal duty for being overcharged, as in daylight robbery for an expensive coffee. That looser sense has nothing to do with actual theft.
