Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) beyond one’s abilities.

1835		D. Crockett Col. Crockett’s Tour to North and Down East 44: I shall not attempt to describe the curiosities here [i.e. at Peale’s Museum]; it is above my bend.
1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1872		Schele De Vere Americanisms 577: Above one’s bend means, above one’s power of bending all his strength to a certain purpose.

a bow of the head, a nod.

1909

(ref. to 18C) in J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.

(US) to be imprisoned.

1947

C.S. Montanye ‘Frozen Stiff’ in Popular Detective Mar. 🌐 Hagen picked him up for working a squeeze play on a cloak-and-suiter from out of town [...] He got the bend for that.

1. crooked, criminal, underhand [predates bent adj. (3) but presumably its derivation].

1863		J.C. Jeaffreson Live it Down II 152: I never have paid anything yet on the square, and I never will. When I die, I’ll order my executor to buy my coffin off the square. He shall get it on the bend somehow or other [F&H].
1927		C. Coe Me – Gangster 189: I figgered you were on the bend.
1929		Hostetter & Beesley It’s a Racket! 233: on the bend—Crooked; racketeering; criminal.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 166: on the bend Engaged in some kind of crime; obtaining drugs through a runner.

2. at a disadvantage [the image is one who is bending over and may thus, unaware, be kicked].

1910

Wodehouse Psmith in the City (1993) 56: A chance of catching him (in the inspired language of the music-halls) on the bend.

3. see also on a bend under bend n.²