find, v. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

find v.

a self-serving euph. for to steal.

1833		‘Polly Cox’ in Corinthian in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) IV 50And the Dustman he was transported, / ’Cause he found a silver spoon: .
1866		J. Greenwood Little Ragamuffin 139: ‘If takin’ things [...] isn’t stealin’, what is it?’ I asked [...] ‘Pinchin’, findin’, gleanin’, some coves calls it,’ put in Ripston.
1896		A. Morrison Child of the Jago (1946) 42: When you find anythink [...] just like you found that watch, don’t tell nobody, an’ don’t let nobody see it.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 24 Mar. 24/4: Young Lieut. Roberts [...] gave a great account of a weedy Arab-blooded animal he had bought – or ‘found’ – at a Boer farm.
1978		A. Burgess 1985 (1980) 142: ‘Thieving?’ ‘We don’t like that word. We prefer euphemisms like nicking, knocking off, finding, scrounging’.

SE in slang uses

In phrases

find a home (v.)

(US prison) of a prisoner, to be completely dependent on the prison system for stability.

1950

Goldin et al. DAUL 69/1: Find a home. (Ironically) To be more comfortable in prison than in ‘free society.’ ‘You don’t wanta make the board (obtain a parole), bum, you found a home.’.

find a stump to fit your rump

see under stump n.

find cold weather (v.)

to be thrown out of a public house.

1909

J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 131/1: Find cold weather (Public-house). To be bounced, or expelled ; e.g., ‘Yere you – if you ain’t quiet you’ll soon find cold weather I can tell yer.’.

find fish on one’s fingers (v.) [i.e. ‘something smells’]

to make up an excuse.

1587		Greene in Works IV 140: Who (as the nature of women is, desirous to see and bee seene) thought she should both heare the parle and view the person of this young embassadour, and therefore found fish on her fingers, that she might staye still in the chamber of presence.
1590		T. Lodge Rosalynde (Hunterian Club) 122: Ganimede rose as one that would suffer no fish to hang on his fingers.

find one’s sex and size (v.) [shopping imagery]

(W.I.) to mix with people of one’s own age and class; thus not be sex and size with, not to fit in with on an age or social level.

1996

Allsopp Dict. Carib. Eng. Usage.

In exclamations

find where you live! (also find your hole! …place! …yard!)

(W.I.) an aggressive command; go home! go away!

1996

Allsopp Dict. Carib. Eng. Usage.

find your bound-place! (also go back to your bound-place!) [bound-place, that part of a sugar estate in which indentured labourers were confined on their arrival; thus the image is of poverty and lowly origins]

(W.I.) go back to where you came from!

1996

Allsopp Dict. Carib. Eng. Usage.