Green’s Dictionary of Slang

to cheat, to swindle, to steal; thus rooking n. and adj., cheating.

1590		Book of Sir Thomas Moore facs. (S) (1911) I ii: Let tham gull me, widgen me, rooke me, fopper me yfaith.
1598		Jonson Every Man In his Humour III i: Then, ’sblood, I were rook’d.
1641		‘The Penitent Traytor’ Rump Poems and Songs (1662) I 54: Which I did frame my self & thus did rook them, / They paid me when I gave, and when I took them.
c.1655		‘Michaelmas Term’ in Ebsworth Bagford Ballads (1878) I 406: Where concourse of people is, they doe get most, / with rooking exploits, which they use now and then.
1663		Dryden Wild Gallant IV i: If ever man play’d with such cursed fortune, I’ll be hanged, and all for want of this damned ace – there’s your ten pieces, with a pox to you, for a rooking beggarly rascal as you are.
1675		[Dudley Loftus] ‘The Wish’ in Carpenter Verse in English from Tudor & Stuart Eng. (2003) 431: Count all th’ Estates, / By Basilus rook’d from our Confederates.
a.1674		Rochester ‘The Argument’ Poems on Several Occasions (1680) 37: Thus was I Rook’d of Twelve substantial Fucks.
1680		Character of a Town-Miss in C. Hindley Old Bk Collector’s Misc. 4: Like a Tailors-Bill, wherein a man sees himself Rooked abominably.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Setters, or Setting-dogs, they that draw in Bubbles, for old Gamesters to Rook.
1725		New Canting Dict. n.p.: To Rook to Cheat or play the Knave.
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. 1725].
1755		The Tricks of the Town Laid Open (4 edn) 52: When they have got a Gentleman, who they design to rook [...] some are sharping him out of his Money within, others tampering with his Servants without, to find out the Strength and Manner of his Estate.
1781		Belle’s Stratagem 39: It [i.e. a carriage] was bespoke six months since by a Nabob, who was rooked among you — then you sent the poor gentleman back to India to gather a few more lacks of rupees.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1792		New Cheats of London Exposed 16: They have got a gentleman, whom they design to rook in among them .
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1821		‘An Amateur’ Real Life in London I 45: He has been among the Greeks and pigeons, who have completely rook’d him, and now want to crow over him.
1826		C.M. Westmacott Eng. Spy II 235: The most passive pigeon that ever submitted to rooking.
1845		R.S. Surtees Hillingdon Hall I 206: He had rooked them of their money at cards, and won two pounds nine and sixpence.
1862		E. de la Bédollière Londres et les Anglais 317/2: to rook, tricher un jeu.
1874		‘Old Calabar’ Won in a Canter III 207: ‘A man as makes a book mustn’t be too particular, if he is, he’s rooked to a dead certainty’.
1874		M. Clarke Term of His Natural Life (1897) 214: Having [...] rooked a gambling ninny like Lemoine.
1885		L. Emanuel Jottings [...] of a Bengal ‘qui hye’ 62: That shady case of ‘rooking’ at the Junior Imperial.
1887		in G.D. Atkin House Scraps 164: Jolly go the moments when I rook them so.
1890		Kipling ‘The Story of the Gadbsys’ Soldiers Three (1907) 137: What has become of the six hundred you rooked from our table last month?
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 13 Jan. 24/4: ‘I couldn’t hold him back,’ said the jock. ‘You’re a — liar; you rooked me.’ The jock pulled off his coat and shifted one side of the trainer’s face.
1908		‘Doss Chiderdoss ‘Odd or Even?’ Sporting Times 26 Sept. 1/3: That’s ’ow ’e rooked us nine times out of ten.
1917		‘Banjo’ Paterson ‘The Downfall of Mulligan’s’ Three Elephant Power 61: What a magnificent yarn they would have to tell about how they rooked a priest on the way down.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 610: To think of him house and homeless, rooked by some landlady worse than any stepmother, was really too bad at his age.
1923		Gippsland Times (Vic.) 1 Oct. 5/3: I am young and not bad lookin’, / I cud kill an’ do th’ cookin’, / An’ I don’t go in fer rookin’ / Enny bloke wot gives me work.
1930		R.E. Howard ‘Winner Take All’ Fight Stories J 🌐 We been robbed! We been rooked! We been gypped!
1936		Wodehouse ‘Noblesse Oblige’ in Young Men in Spats 192: He was not one of those punters [...] who rook the Greek Syndicate of three million francs in an evening.
1948		(con. 1944) N. Mailer Naked and Dead 174: Rooking the enlisted men [...] isn’t going to make them love you any.
1956		J. Thompson ‘The Cellini Chalice’ Fireworks (1988) 62: Doc Krug would probably give him a rooking, or try to [...] all he could do was hold the rooking down to a minimum.
1957		Kerouac On The Road (1972) 25: I would have felt like the devil himself rooking them with those cheap carnival tricks.
1957		J. Thompson in Alfred Hitchcock’s Suspense Mag. May 14/1: Staring up into the darkness, he pondered the problem of giving Babe a well-deserved rooking.
1957		C. Himes Imabelle 58: The man wondered if Jackson was trying to rook him with a con game of his own.
1961		(con. 1920s) J. Sparks Burglar to the Nobility 24: We’d find ourselves waking up [...] rooked, besotted, empty-pocketed.
1965		C. Himes Rage in Harlem (1969) 59: The man wondered if Jackson was trying to rook him with a confidence game.
1972		O. Hawkins Ghetto Sketches 83: First thing I know, I’d been rooked out of my jade by some slick-talkin’ Armenian cats.
1989		H. Leonard Out After Dark 12: You rooked us.
2001		‘Randy Everhard’ Tattoo of a Naked Lady 105: His midway’s so squeaky clean [...] No ’rooking allowed.