Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(orig. US) to pay one’s debts or one’s dues.

1819		Rural Magazine and Farmer’s Monthly Museum May 125/2: The [...] favoured gentlemen are walking rapidly into the merchant-tailors shops, and very slowly out, unless they ponied up the Spanish.
1824		Microscope (Albany, NY) 3 Apr. 15/3: I’ve heard as how he’d like to have drowned a man once, ’fore he could make him poney up.
1825		‘Joe Strickland’ Vermont Recorder 7 July n.p.: He poneyed down Bran New Kimikill bills.
1838		J.C. Neal Charcoal Sketches (1865) 68: It was my job to pay all the bills. Yes, it was always [...] ‘Salix, pony up at the bar, and lend us a levy’.
1846		D. Corcoran Pickings from N.O. Picayune 74: Ven Nicholas tells the defaultin’ states to pony up, I says, go it, Nick!
1855		D.C. Mitchell Fudge Doings II 172: He thinks the gentleman will ‘poney up,’ sooner or later.
1864		A.F. Hill Our Boys 202: He must recover his gun – or else pony up twelve dollars.
c.1865		‘The Old Shipyard’ Fred Shaw’s Champion Comic Melodist 58: If you want a smash, you must poney the cash.
1876		St Louis Globe-Democrat 19 Jan. n.p.: The barkeeper calls out, ‘Say, you snoozer, pony up’.
1877		Troy Herald (MO) 1 Aug. 3/1: Pony up that beef now, old man.
1881		Dly Eve. Bulletin (Maysville, KY) 30 Nov. 3/1: But men whose means are narrowed down / [...] / For want of wealth to pony up, / The loss of this must stand.
1893		J. Hawthorne Confessions of Convict 131: If he doesn’t pony up regular, the fly cops hound him out of the place.
1895		C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 60: Pony [...] ‘pony up’ - pay up.
1906		A.H. Lewis Confessions of a Detective 77: In case any one rebelled, or failed for any reason to pony up, the captain of that precinct was ordered to send a squad and blot him out.
1914		Joyce ‘An Encounter’ Dubliners (1956) 94: Pony up, boys. We’ll have just one little smahan more and then we’ll be off.
1914		H. Hershfield Abie the Agent 18 Nov. [synd. cartoon strip] You pony up for theatre tickets.
1915		Sun. Times (Sydney) 5 Dec. 9/6: The kiddy ‘ponies up’ his penny or ‘trey bit’.
1922		Eve. Star (Washington, DC) 26 May n.p.: [This] leaves nothin’ for the common or garden citizen to do but take in the concerts and pony up a little sweetnin’s.
c.1930		(con. 1870s) N. Kimball Amer. Madam (1981) 114: What the hell do you tinhorns think we are? A couple of hookers! Did we ask you to pony up?
1949		Chicago Trib. 21 Sept. 26/1: Secretary of Agriculture Brannan has impatiently ordered congress to [...] pony up 7 million dollars [DA].
1951		(con. 1900s) S. Longstreet Pedlocks (1971) 170: She was a good sort, ponied up when we needed it badly.
1975		L. Rosten Dear ‘Herm’ 123: How much money should I ask the publisher to pony up?
1987		‘Joe Bob Briggs’ Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In 190: There’s this Mafia guy who don’t want to pony up for the heroin.
1998		Guardian Guide 25–31 July 5: I thought they ponied up cash to make films, yelled at their underlings night and day.
2003		J. Lethem Fortress of Solitude 173: At 5.99 a bottle of Garvey’s Violet’s enough of a bargain the writers pony up.
2011		J. Mabus ‘Sally Gal’ 🎵 Gotta pony up the dough.
2013		P. Abbott ‘Allure Furs’ in ThugLit Feb. [ebook] [M]en taking photographs of me wearing a mask if they ponied up enough money.