Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. US) a large amount of loot or profit.

1776		A. Adams in J. Q. Adams’ Family Letters (1876) 220: I think we made a fine haul of prizes [OED].
1848		‘Ned Buntline’ Mysteries and Miseries of N.Y. I 37: Lize made a big haul last night; I’ve brought it over to put in the big bag, and draw our share of the lucky.
1851		‘Greenhorn’ [G. Thompson] Bristol Bill 17/1: [He] described the plans usually pursued, when a great ‘haul’ was to be made.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor II 152/2: They no sooner make a ‘haul,’ as they say, than they adjourn to some low public-house.
1877		Five Years’ Penal Servitude 241: You never make a great haul like you can at a racecourse or a rail station.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 7 Mar. 7/4: There have been several ways of making money in New Zealand [...] but perhaps the best little haul ever made [...] was that by which a man who kept a small seed shop in Dunedin rose to affluence.
1899		C. Rook Hooligan Nights 91: A couple of lady friends who used to array themselves as nurses and make a nice little haul.
1908		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘A Cracksman’s Conscience’ Sporting Times 18 Jan. 1/3: I’d had a good haul at a banker’s once, some hundreds in hard cash, / Not in notes, so awkward to negotiate.
1917		F. Packard Adventures of Jimmie Dale (1918) 134: ‘Some haul!’ observed Clarie Deane, with a hoarse chuckle. ‘The papers said over twenty thousand.’.
1929		E. Dahlberg Bottom Dogs 73: Shrimp [...] still maintained the guy who was pulling off those heavy hauls was Bonehead-Star-Wolfe.
1933		Ersine Und. and Prison Sl.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1950		‘Hal Ellson’ Tomboy (1952) 15: If we’d got a haul, I’d go to Coney Island tomorrow and do all the rides.
1964		‘Return of Honky-Tonk Bud’ in D. Wepman et al. Life (1976) 63: And with his haul he established a stall, / And from then on he really flew.
1978		F. Norman Dead Butler Caper 108: I put de vord about I’m interested in de Peveril haul.
1997		C. Newland Scholar 20: As quickly and quietly as they could [they] shoved themselves in the car with their haul on their laps.
2001		N. Barlay Hooky Gear 182: I tell them about the Wealdstone corner ship blag of ’94, the biggest confectionery haul of the last millennium. It was well sweet.
2022		A. Kirzman Giuliani 175: His speaking-fee haul in 2002 was estimated at $8 million.

2. (US) a robbery.

1848		‘Ned Buntline’ Mysteries and Miseries of N.Y. I 40: I’ve not got the spunk to make a real large haul.
1920		F. Packard White Moll 35: I’m offering you a chance to stop a twenty-thousand-dollar haul.
1965		B. Jackson Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 78: One more haul and then that’ll be all.

3. (also haul-in) a round-up of suspects, criminals.

1917		F. Packard Adventures of Jimmie Dale (1918) I ii: We was after one of the biggest hauls we’d ever pulled off.
1933		Ersine Und. and Prison Sl. 43: haul, n. A loot.