Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to live deprived of life’s material comforts; not simply to be poor, but to volunteer oneself, as in camping, the forces etc, for such hardy existence; thus rough-un n., a good spot for sleeping out of doors.

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: A prisoner who can pay for being alone, chuses two poor chums, who for a stipulated price, called chummage, give up their share of the room, and sleep on the stairs, or as the term is, ruff it. [Ibid.] To lie rough; to lie all night in one’s clothes: called also roughing it.
c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Rough, to lie rough, to lie all night in one’s clothes; called also roughing it. also to sleep on the bare Deck of a Ship, on which the party is commonly advised by his brother Sailors to chuse the softest Board.
1814		Austen Mansfield Park (1926) 388: Take care of Fanny, mother. She is tender, and not used to rough it like the rest of us.
1824		Annals of Sporting 1 Feb. 127: [He]presented Mr S. with a ticket [...] for the grand stand. This, however, he declined, and roughed it in the ring.
1844		A. Smith Adventures of Mr Ledbury 68: One or two other young men who were roughing it with knapsacks like themselves.
1853		R.S. Surtees Mr Sponge’s Sporting Tour 345: I’ve only bachelor 'commodation to offer you; but p’raps you’ll not mind roughing it a bit?
1857		Paul Letters from Canterbury 94: Read Mr. Moody’s ‘Roughing it in the Bush.’.
1865		M.L. Byrn Adventures of Fudge Fumble 5: He would have an opportunity of ‘roughing it.’.
1876		C. Hindley Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack 192: After a few years of knocking about and roughing it, she was anything but clean in her person or manners.
1889		J.K. Jerome Three Men in a Boat 190: If we didn’t mind roughing it [...] there was a little beershop half a mile down the Eton road.
1890		Sporting Times 15 Feb. 1/1: She showed what an English Lady is capable of when compelled to ‘rough it.’.
1892		Salt Lake Herald (UT) 7 Dec. 8/2: As he stepped off the elevator he excused his ‘roughing it’ appearance.
1895		C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 68: Rough It, to put up with inconveniences on the track [i.e. living as a vagrant].
1900		Boy’s Own Paper 15 Dec. 167: A sailorman must always be able to adjust himself to circumstances, for he is often called upon to rough it and play Robinson Crusoe.
1903		N. Gould Straight Goer (1915) 25: ‘You have roughed it?’ [...] ‘I can stand it’.
1911		Gem 30 Sept. 22: We don’t mind roughing it, sir.
1917		‘A-No. 1’ From Coast to Coast with Jack London 15: I was tramp-named ‘Cigaret’ and ‘Sailor Jack’ by fellows with whom I’ve roughed it on land and water.
1924		S. Scott Human Side of Crook and Convict Life 82: The horrors of prison life, so much more potently awful to a man of gentle upbringing than to one used to ‘roughing it.’.
1933		‘Goat’ Laven Rough Stuff 108: I was making plenty of money those days, and living nice and enjoying life, it was quite a change from roughing it in the country.
1943		E. Pyle Here Is Your War (1945) 43: They were really roughing it.
1959		J. Osborne World of Paul Slickey Act II: I think we have all learned to rough it in the last few years.
1968		P. Terson Apprentices (1970) I iv: I tell you, we’re going away this fortnight [...] Kipping out, roughing it. None of your thermos flask week-ends in Brid.
1979		C. Dexter Service of All the Dead (1980) 138: Been roughing it long?
1989		(con. 1984) P. Theroux My Secret Hist. (1990) 467: I like roughing it.
1999		Indep. on Sun. Rev. 10 Oct. 14: Spent seven months roughing it in Kent.
2000		Guardian Rev. 31 Mar. 5: Grossed-out city yuppie, objecting to roughing it. (We have to sleep in tents?).

2. to fight.

1850		Fast Man 3:1 n.p.: MY DEAR OLD GIRL, I always thought you a ‘Stunner’ for a ten minutes row, but now I am convinced of your successful go in on [...] the long shicksters from the Masque, that you could rough it for an hour.
1906		S. Ford Shorty McCabe 154: We was roughin’ it all over the ring.
1928		J. Callahan Man’s Grim Justice 32: We dove into a clinch and began to rough it.

3. (US) to treat roughly.

1913–14

Van Loan ‘No Business’ in Taking the Count 150: Give him a tough guy [...] that’ll rough it with him.