Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(orig. US) in partnership (with), usu. implying a slightly disreputable or surreptitious alliance.

1829		S. Kirkham Eng. Grammar 207/1: Hese in cohoot with me [DA].
1839		Congressional Globe 4 Mar. 211: I will splice the member for North Carolina to you, and for a short time will consider you one person, or in cahoot.
1845		W.T. Thompson Chronicles of Pineville 74: Them devils is got clean off after all. Pete Hopkins ain’t no better nor he should be, and I wouldn’t sware he wasn’t in cahoot with ’em.
1858		G.W. Harris ‘Sut Lovingood’s Chest Story’ Nashville Union and American XXIX June in Inge (1967) 120: She were runnin an oppersishun line to the chicken eater, in cahoote with a man powerful with pills and squts.
1862		G.K. Wilder MS Diary n.p.: 14 May Mc wished me to go in cahoots in a store [DA].
1874		J.H. Carter ‘Our Member From Duck Creek Settlement’ in Log of Commodore Rollingpin 219: [He] hinted the sheriff would be raise from his boots / Unless he divided an’ went in cahoots.
1889		K. Munroe Golden Days of ’49 26: Are you willing to work in cahoots with yours truly?
1892		Congressional Record 16 Mar. 2133/1: Let’s go into cahoots and go a coon hunting .
1902		W.N. Harben Abner Daniel 209: I knowed she was in cahoot with ’im.
1918		‘Commander’ Clear the Decks! 246: The natives are in cahoots with our enemies.
1929		M. Levin Reporter 52: There are some people that double-cross you if you work cahoots.
1933		(con. 1870s–80s) H. Asbury Barbary Coast (2002) 112: They always worked together, or in cahoots as the slang phrase of the time had it.
1940		J. MacLaren-Ross ‘A Bit of a Smash in Madras’ in Memoirs of the Forties (1984) 278: Turpin and Krishnaswami were in cahoots, and Turpin was the pilot-fish.
1940		D. Maurer Big Con 256: It looks to me as if you two are in cahoots to swindle me.
1952		Lait & Mortimer USA Confidential 96: They [i.e. prostitutes] are in cahoots with cab-drivers.
1965		C. Himes Cotton Comes to Harlem (1967) 33: They might have been in cahoots with O’Malley to help him get away with the money.
1972		P. Fordham Inside the Und. 57: It has become a prestige symbol [...] to be in cahoots with gangsters.
1987		‘Joe Bob Briggs’ Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In 129: The warden and the queen bee are in cahoots.
1999		Indep. Rev. 25 June 6: Roe was in cahoots with a Sussex crook.
2000		Eminem ‘Under the Influence’ 🎵 I’ve been a con artist since I was swimmin’ in water / In cahoots with this nigga named Fall Out Von.
2000		Indep. on Sun. Culture 9 Jan. 3: He seems to be in cahoots with his director.
2014		M. McBride Swollen Red Sun 98: ‘I can’t believe a cop’d be stupid enough to get in cahoots with you idiots’.
2015		R. Reynolds The Dark Inside 24: ‘We working at the behest of the police—’ ‘Behest? I’d say in cahoots’.
2017		L. McInerney Blood Miracles 96: Shakespeare had nothing to do with the pills’ disappearance, and he is not in cahoots with J.P.
2021		A. Parks April Dead 213: Was she in cahoots with Billy?
2023		F. Bill Back to the Dirt 115: ‘[I]know you were in cahoots with my brother, running a prescription drug ring’.