grave robberies meaning

• [Medicine]
  The stealing of corpses after burial,especially for medical dissection. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries,in the absence of laws governing the acquisition of dissecting material for the study of anatomy,the needs of anatomy classes were met by surreptitious methods: body-snatching and grave robbing. The infamous practice of burking,murder to procure bodies for dissection,was given the name of a rascal named W. Burke,hanged in Edinburgh in 1829. (Random House Unabridged Dictionary,2d ed; from Garrison,An Introduction to the History of Medicine,4th ed,p447; from Castiglioni,A History of Medicine,2d ed,p676)

• grave:    Noun: grave & ...
• gallery grave:    [Architecture]A pr ...
• grave accent:    Noun: grave accent ...

Examples

1. Where grave goods appear, grave robbery is a potential problem.
2. And on and on goes this political grave robbery.
3. So, when does grave robbery stop being desecration and start being archaeology?
4. Heavy machinery has added new efficiency to the grim business of grave robbery.
5. On about five different levels, " Callas Forever " constitutes grave robbery.