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.
1903		Wodehouse Prefect’s Uncle [ebook] ‘You got rather left there, old chap,’ said Monk at length. ‘I like that,’ replied the outraged Danvers. ‘How about you, then? It seemed to me you got rather left, too’.
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.