Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) at a disadvantage, defeated; esp. as get left v., to be placed at a disadvantage.

1882		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 11 Mar. 2/1: Somebody’s going to get ‘left’ in the grand attempt to scoop the entire pot on the English turf .
1883		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 10 Nov. 6/1: [headline] NEW YORK NAKED; or, Not Such a Sucker as He Looked. Being the Adventures of a Young Man Who Did Not Get Left .
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 7 Feb. 12/3: The reverend gentleman had put his modest little ‘all’ on Wing for the Anniversary Handicap, and got badly left in consequence.
1890		Sporting Times 5 Apr. 2/1: Unless you chuck your cards you’ll get left.
1890		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 29 Mar. 2/2: Patti gets a thousand a night. Tamagno gets, I don’t know how much. Does the public get left?
1895–6		(?) H. Lawson ‘An Oversight of Steelman’s’ in Roderick (1972) 219: I’m afraid he got left the last time I stayed there.
1899		A.H. Quinn Pennsylvania Stories 69: We determined not to be left entirely, and so we laid a plan to steal theirs in return [DA].
1902		Bulletin (Sydney) 12 Jul. Red Page/3: You’ve collared one of my best reporters, and it was no thanks to you that we weren’t ‘left’ over his stuff.
1914		H. Hershfield Abie the Agent 16 Sept. [synd. cartoon strip] — Did ya ever get left? — He put one over on us! [...] Gracious this is humilating!

2. (US black) dead.

1998

Big L ‘Ebonics’ 🎵 If you got killed, you got left.