Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(orig. US) to snub, to render socially unacceptable, to exclude from a (business) deal.

1861		G.K. Wilder Diary (ms.) 20 July n.p.: We finally froze him out [DA].
1877		B. Harte Story of a Mine 35: That ingenuous American pastime which my countrymen dismiss in their epigrammatic way as the ‘freezing-out process’.
1884		C.E. Craddock Where The Battle Was Fought 48: By a dexterous use of the system known as ‘freezing out,’ the two had become exclusive owners of a certain silver mine in Colorado.
1892		‘John Miller’ Workingman’s Paradise 201: You’d regard it as quite square to freeze me out because I do talk straight.
1902		H. Hapgood Spirit of the Ghetto 171: They [Jacob Adler and Keni Liptzin] tried to find a place in New York, but the Yiddish company [...] already in New York, froze them out.
1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 137/2: Froze out (Amer.-Eng., 1880–96). Conquered, made the other a nonentity.
1914		Ade ‘The New Fable of the Marathon in the Mud’ Ade’s Fables 289: In order to [...] freeze out the other Holders of Stock and gradually possess himself of all the Money in the World, Aleck now found it necessary to organize himself.
1915		Bulletin (Sydney) 5 Aug. 48/1: But I was sort of froze out. May thinks, you see, that I’m not a fit cobber fer Bill!
1921		C.B. Booth ‘Mr Clacksworthy Within the Law’ Detective Story 13 Aug. 🌐 My father wasn’t a very shrewd business man—and Denton was. Dad was frozen out. Denton took the patents and sold them.
1929		R. Coleman Girl From Back Home in Hatch & Hamalian Lost Plays of Harlem Renaissance (1996) 102: He knew me so well and seemed so glad to see me, that I couldn’t freeze him out.
1936		K. Mackenzie Living Rough 80: The little guy sure must be frozen out of the racket by big business.
1949		H. Miller Sexus (1969) 116: He was [...] obviously determined to freeze me out as quickly as possible.
1975		E. Torres Carlito’s Way 102: I say freeze them out.
1999		Observer Mag. 3 Oct. 24: He has a star’s ability to [...] freeze you out if you ask something he doesn’t want to answer.
2000		W. Shaw Westsiders 50: Girls were frozen out of dancing very early on.