cradle robber

plural cradle robbers · alternative cradle-robber

1. derogatoryidiomaticA person who marries or becomes romantically involved with someone who is much younger, or who employs or otherwise engages a young person for a purpose inappropriate for his or her age.

   "And no mother," he shouted, "can call ME a ‘fortune-hunter’ and a ‘cradle-robber’ and think I'll make good by marrying her daughter!"

   1914, Richard Harding Davis, The Man Who Could Not Lose

   1 more example

   I was a 50-year-old woman; he was a 25-year-old man. . . . I was out of my pajamas and into a short skirt before you could say “cradle robber”.

   2006 October 29, Francine Maroukian, “Modern Love: We Lived in the Present, Then the Future Arrived”, in New York Times

   Synonyms: cradle snatcher