Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to beat up.

1833		‘There’s Nothing Like a Spree at Night’ in Convivialist in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) IV 13: Jemmy Jumps, the tailor boy, no man like him can use a goose, / Is striving if he cannot stiutch up Tom the Cobler’s [sic] eyes.
2002		R.G. Barrett Mystery Bay Blues 237: To see him get stitched up like that, it was music to our eyes.

2. to cheat someone.

1837		True Colonist (Hobart, Tas.) 18 Jan. 585/3: ‘I have every reason to be grateful to my patron for the many good things he has given me, and for the opportunities he has afforded me of stitching up so many poor devils’.
1981		J. Sullivan ‘Big Brother’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] Del – it’s obvious you’re stitching me up.
1986		C. Bowles G’DAY 113: He's decided to move to the Gong and work for his brother, stitching up wood ducks in a car yard!
1998		J. Hoskison Inside 119: The drug dealers were seething: he’d really stitched them up.
2005		B. Hare Urban Grimshaw 54: Everyone was on the make, out to stitch her up.
2010		K. Richards Life 203: Tony was a good mate of mine, but he used to stitch me up.
2016		N. Cummins Adventures of the Honey Badger [ebook] [B]eing heavily hassled by 108 taxi drivers all battling to see who would get to stitch the foreigner up with their cab fare.
2018		New European 25-31 Jan. 14: [headline] Will Macron Stitch Us Up?

3. (UK Und./police) of the police, to incriminate a person in order to ensure a conviction by planting evidence, faking confessions etc.; also in non-police use.

1970		G.F. Newman Sir, You Bastard 127: Your confederate has just about stitched you up.
1986		F. Taylor Auf Wiedersehen Pet Two 232: You couldn’t have stitched me up better.
1996		(con. 1964-65) B. Thorpe Sex and Thugs and Rock ’n’ Roll 70: ‘You’re not gunna stitch me up with another fuckin’ lag’.
1998		Guardian Sport 2 Oct. 16: A quick interview with one of the hyenas from the papers, stitching up a fellow pro.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 178/2: stitch up v. to secure a conviction using fabricated evidence.
2005		P. Howard Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightdress 81: Stitching up the Boy Poet puts me in cracking form.
2015		L. McInerney Glorious Heresies 161: I’m thinking maybe she’s stitched you up to stitch me up [...] but I had nothing to do with your fella going walkabout.
2021		P Howard Braywatch 121: This Roderdic Grainger sham is godda stitch Cheerlie up.

4. to complete a task to one’s total satisfaction.

1984

Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 1157/2: since ca. 1970.

5. (also stitch) to place in one’s power.

2002		J. Cameron Hell on Hoe Street 154: ‘He stitched me.’ ‘Like a fucking truss, Nicky. His price.’.
2008		J. Niven Kill Your Friends (2009) 13: What meetings are very good for, however, is stitching people up —undermining, belittling and humiliating them.