Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to search and steal from somebody’s clothes.

1917

‘A-No. 1’ From Coast to Coast with Jack London 53: The yegg [...] was busily working over the injured. [...] He was rifling their pockets of the pitiful contents.

2. (orig. US) to beat up, to hurt to any extent short of murder; thus work-over, working over n., a thrashing, a beating; also in fig. use.

1924		D. Hammett ‘One Hour’ in Nightmare Town (2001) 259: Them lads sure [...] have worked you over! You got a face like a wet geranium!
1935		D. Lamson We Who Are About to Die 104: It was easy to imagine him working over a gee with a piece of rubber hose.
1949		I. Shulman Cry Tough! 18: Boy, [...] I’d give anything to be able to have Crazy work you over.
1953		W.P. McGivern Big Heat 122: You like working girls over, don’t you, Stone?
1968		J. Hersey Algiers Motel Incident 107: You’d be surprised how six or seven girls can work over a really tough guy.
1976		P. Conroy Great Santini (1977) 463: You need a working over bad, hog.
1981		A. Weller Day of the Dog 102: He waits for them to come and work him over, like they said they would.
1991		(con. 1920s) O.D. Brooks Legs 76: They worked him over with their fists.
2001		N. Green Shooting Dr. Jack (2002) 192: You really worked me over. I’m gonna need a little somethin’ to calm my nerves.
2012		G. Pelecanos (con. 1972) What It Was 109: They worked you over pretty good.
2013		K. Sampson Killing Pool 11: I wouldn’t normally have worked the prick over that bad.

3. (US black) vtr. to have sexual intercourse.

1964

R.D. Abrahams Deep Down in the Jungle 204: [T]he old woman, she hadn’t been worked over in a long while. [...] She said, ‘Ain’t nobody within a hundred miles of here. Got to get me some dick from somewhere’.