do over v.
1. in fig. use, to cause harm.
![]() | Life’s Painter 138: The melting pot receiver, proved his selling the clink to him (naps the bib) and that’s what did him over. | |
![]() | Major Downing (1834) 158: I’ll [...] have him over the coals and du [sic] him over. |
2. to disable, to wear out, to tire out.
![]() | An Incredible Bore 16: I found that my purse was most certainly dish’d§ [...] § Dish’d I should imagine this metaphor to be borrowed from Cookery; in a kitchen any thing dished, is finished, and thus it may be confidered adequate to an expression in high vogue with the vulgar, done over. | |
![]() | ‘The Navigator’s New Victory’ in | II (1979) 145: And so the poor tailor was fairly done o’er.|
![]() | Pickwick Papers (1999) 523: He’s in a horrid state o’ love; reg’larly comfoozled, and done over with it. | |
![]() | A Stray Yankee in Texas 96: [The dogs] were completely done over and used up. | |
, , | ![]() | Sl. Dict. |
![]() | Dock Rats of N.Y. (2006) 107: ‘How does he take the thing?’ ‘He’s all done over.’ ‘Inclined to talk?’ ‘I reckon you can make him talk.’. |
3. to cheat, to defraud.
![]() | View of Society II 43: And now, Hostler, can’t you tell me how you have done ’em over? | |
![]() | ‘A Favorite Comic Song’ in Parsley’s Lyric Repository 17: As easy as Humphries in fact, Did over Mendoza the Jew. | |
![]() | Fortnights Ramble through London 17: ‘You are not the first [...] whom the nimble-fingered gentry have done over’. | |
![]() | Life and Travels 139: I supplied her with genteel apparel, and likewise paid a doctor for her during a severe fit of sicknes, after recovering from which she married and left me as usual like the done-over tailor. | |
![]() | Lex. Balatronicum. | |
![]() | song title in Fal-Lal Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) III 6: The Cuckold Drover! or, The Merchant Done Over. | |
![]() | People 6 Jan. in (1909) 112/1: When they comes back, Selby says to me, ‘All I could do him over for was a couple of bob.’. | |
![]() | Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 112/1: Do over for (Low London). To extract money by flattery or threats. |
4. to beat up; lit. or fig.
, | ![]() | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd, 3rd edn). |
![]() | Sporting Mag. Nov. XIX 99/2: He and a party of his school-fellows [...] had done the usher over at the ale-house. | |
![]() | Drunkard’s Looking Glass (1929) 95: ‘Heigh, neighbour! hav’nt I done over one of the rascaly sherriffs.’ Supposing that her husband had murdered the sherrif, she began to fill the house with her cries. | |
![]() | Bk of Sports 27: marc antony was defeated! suwarrow licked! tippoo saib ‘done over’. | |
![]() | We Were the Rats 193: He mentioned instead the night he did over the M.Ps in the blue in Tel Aviv. | |
![]() | Shiralee 27: Yer’d on’y bite, and next thing I’d be doin’ yer over. | |
![]() | Soldiers’ Women (1978) 360: [T]hey had got in touch with him to enlist his aid in doing over Mary Ann and robbing her of whatever they could lay hands on. | |
![]() | Frying-Pan 21: A bunch of screws will go into someone’s cell and do him over physically. | |
![]() | (con. 1930s) ‘Keep Moving’ 55: Next time any of yous bastards cross this fence ya’ll get really done over. | |
![]() | Up the Cross 108: ‘He’s got the drop on me, If I do him over, I’m a goner’. | (con. 1959)|
![]() | (con. 1950s–60s) in Little Legs 105: Those geezers had [...] done him over with hammers. | |
![]() | Filth 27: You think maybe one ay they racially biased mobs did the darkie-boy over? | |
![]() | Guardian Guide 12–18 Feb. 52: He’d only get done over in the first boozer he went into, by some young thug. | |
![]() | Eve. Standard 28 Oct. 7/4: ‘We were done over — comprehensively,’ was the private verdict of a senior Labour politican [...] ‘The French stuffed us’. | |
![]() | (con. 1980s) Skagboys 75: That [...] wis chucked out the polis for daein people ower in the cells. | |
![]() | Bobby March Will Live Forever 239: ‘He did Alec Page over, took great pleasure in it. And he’s the one that attacked Laura’. |
5. of a man, to seduce, to have intercourse with.
![]() | Sel. Trials Old Bailey III 237: Mary Green. I asked her what she did [‘in the Garret’] with the young Man, and she answer’d, What if I have a Mind that he should do me over. | |
![]() | View of Society II 105: The old woman having been used to get a little sucky now and then, he contrived to find out that foible and to do her over in that way. | |
![]() | q. in Brickell Mates & Lovers (2008) 45: ‘Come on, I am going to do you over.’ [...] ‘You cannot do me over, I am not a woman’ [Simes:DLSS]. | |
![]() | Victorian Publ. Records Off. File 30 420/30/3 I told him, I would give him in charge for ‘trying to do me over’. | |
![]() | Londonismen. | |
![]() | My Secret Life VIII 1519: The girl was told I was the doctor to Sarah and I once used to ‘Do her over’ (her usual term)—but now tho I came to see her as doctor, I never fucked her. | |
![]() | Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 263: Ventouser. To copulate; ‘to do over’. | |
![]() | Materials for a Dict. Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms]. | |
![]() | Confessions (1977) 101: ‘You did her over yourself,’ he said. I laughed [Simes:DLSS]. | |
![]() | Tell Morning This (1967) 95: He couldn’t do her over with Else and Violet there in the back seat. | |
![]() | Sowers of Wind 109: ‘Some Indians,.. Six of them in Setsuo’s place, doing his sheila over, I think’. | |
![]() | With Hooves of Brass 80: ‘Boy, did you get them two titties of her? Squatting there on the table like a couple of rabbits! [...] Christ, but I’d like to do her over!’. | |
![]() | (con. 1944) Rats in New Guinea 115: Tell us another of yer stories about them sheilas ya used to do over. | |
![]() | Wayward Warriors (1972) 94: McCall thought about the sheila he had done over on his first visit to Brisbane. | |
![]() | Limericks Down Under 99: A boastful old drover / Said he did her over. | |
![]() | Mad Cows 97: ‘Done.’ ‘Done over, you mean.’. |
6. to rob.
![]() | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Done, or Done over. Robbed. Cant. also Convicted or Hanged. | |
![]() | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd edn). | |
![]() | A Fortnight’s Ramble through London 17: ‘You are not the first,’ cried Mr. Portfolio,— ‘whom the nimble-figured gentry have done over’. | |
![]() | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (3rd edn). | |
![]() | Lex. Balatronicum. | |
![]() | Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. | |
![]() | Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 125/2: It doant mattir a straw thau seez abawt ’im ‘collarin’ mi dubble ‘fin,’ kaws I’ll git it bck agin en I ‘du’ is ‘drum’ over. | |
![]() | Manchester Courier 19 May 3: I got drunk, did a place over, and got caught in the act. | |
![]() | Criminal Life 272: You might tell her to go and do that place over. | |
![]() | Hang On a Minute, Mate (1963) 88: Hell, Mick, you’ve done a bank over! | |
![]() | Down and Out 159: Did you read about Lady Barnett’s place being done over while her funeral was on? | |
![]() | Doing Time 132: I broke into the place and started doing it over. | |
![]() | Crosskill [ebook] Eileen told him who was going to do over the Mesics. | |
![]() | Bloody January 60: ‘No pro would do over one of my pubs, wouldnae be that stupid’. |
7. to search thoroughly.
![]() | Come in Spinner (1960) 29: Ever see her do me over? Gawd, if I’ve got so much as a deener in the cuff of me pants, she gets it. | |
![]() | Till Human Voices Wake Us 53: All the huts were done over while we [i.e. prisoners] were out. |
8. to ransack (a building).
![]() | Joyful Condemned 370: It was quite some time since the ‘Fortune’ had been done over. | |
![]() | Bucket of Tongues 1: They came home from the pub to find their flat had been done over. | |
![]() | To Die in June 1347: Whoever had done over Norma McGregor’s flat had done a good job. McCoy and Wattie stood in the middle of the chaos and looked round. |