Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. any act of robbery or swindling.

1812		Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang. in McLachlan (1964) 239: fakement: As to fake signifies to do any act, or make any thing, so the fakement means the act or thing alluded to, and on which your discourse turns; consequently, any stranger unacquainted with your subject will not comprehend what is meant by the fakement; for instance, having recently been concerned with another in some robbery, and immediately separated, the latter taking the booty with him, on your next meeting you will inquire, what he has done with the fakement? meaning the article stolen, whether it was a pocket-book, piece of linen, or what not.
1834		(con. 1737–9) W.H. Ainsworth Rookwood (1837) 137: We’re all ready for the fakement.
1838		W.N. Glascock Land Sharks and Sea Gulls II 4: That’s right; I see you’re fly to every fakement.
1841		‘Ax My Eye’ Dublin Comic Songster 100: Stow your gab and guffery, / To every fakement I am fly, / I never takes no fluffery.
1856		Melbourne Punch 20 Nov. 3/3: DODGE.-Noun, a move, a fakement, a notion a fixin, humbug, hankypanky, a plant, &c., &c. This word is of almost universal application.
1857		‘Leary Man’ in ‘Ducange Anglicus’ Vulgar Tongue (1857) 41: Go first to costermongery, / To every fakement get a-fly.
1866		Wild Boys of London I 228/2: Those infernal peelers are down to every fakement, and the flats are getting scarcer.
1877		Five Years’ Penal Servitude 254: Well, you worked that little fakement in a blooming quiet way, I’m blowed if you havn’t.
1882		Bristol Magpie 6 July 7/1: Fakement Joe has returned to town, after a short visit to one of Her Majesty’s Establishments.
1888		‘Rolf Boldrewood’ Robbery Under Arms (1922) 109: Does anyone know that you boys was in the fakement?
1891		F.W. Carew Autobiog. of a Gipsey 37: He was up to every fakement from ‘trucking’ to house-breaking.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 26 May 12/3: Lilley is the Adonis who was the centre of a huge political fakement about a year ago.
1909		D. Stewart Dead Man’s Gold in Illus. Police News 10 Apr. 12/2: We saw by your features that you were snidey [...] You pulled off the fakement like a bird.
1912		‘R. Andom’ Neighbours of Mine 18: The ‘fakement’— that’s what he called the process he was employing— was resorted to, he informed me with a grin, to ‘do the buffer’.

2. a forged signature.

1811		Lex. Balatronicum n.p.: Fakement. A counterfeit signature. A forgery. Tell the macers to mind their fakements; desire the swindlers to be careful not to forge another person’s signature.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1862		E. de la Bédollière Londres et les Anglais 314/1: fakement, fausse signature.
1888		‘Rolf Boldrewood’ Robbery Under Arms (1922) 71: Marston, Starlight, and Company — that’s the fakement.

3. a false begging petition, a begging letter.

1825		Pierce Egan’s Life in London 27 Mar. 70/2: The head-quarters of the routers are [...] under the direction of one Mich. Mears, a licensed hawker [...] assisted by his secretary, a Mr. Norton, whose office it is to prepare the forged passes, or ‘feakments’.
1839		W.A. Miles Poverty, Mendicity and Crime; Report 156: He draws up fakements for the high-fly, at the padding kens.
1857		‘Ducange Anglicus’ Vulgar Tongue 39: Lawyer Bob draws fakements up; he’s tipped a peg for each.
1858		A. Mayhew Paved with Gold 269: There were women, too, whose living depended upon an imaginary daughter, whom they were taking to London to get cured of the king’s evil; and others whose supposed husbands had fallen off scaffolds, or been injured in a railway accident. The writings, or ‘fakements,’ which testified to these mournful narratives, were to be obtained for a few shillings at any of the principal towns, so that when one story grew stale, it could easily be changed for another.
1863		Story of a Lancashire Thief 9: Brummagen Joe was [...] a patterer; and he could likewise screeve a fakement with any one.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. 9/1: The Schoolmaster draws fakements up; he’s tipped a peg a-piece. The Schoolmaster draws up begging-letters and placards; he is paid a shilling a-piece for them.
1889		Answers 27 Juy 137/1: I have drawn up fakements for sham members of almost every trade, always using a leading name at the head of the list of donors [F&H].
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 27: Fakement, a begging letter; written deposition of a witness.
1914		Truth (Melbourne) 31 Jan. 5/6: With their Holy Joseph fakements / And their crook morality.

4. a letter, a note.

1826		C.M. Westmacott Eng. Spy II 390: I make this fakement to let you know I and morning spread are waiting.
1850		Freeman’s Jrnl 16 Feb. 4/5: This is called standing pad with a fakement. It is a wet weather dodge, and isn’t so good as screeving.
1874		Cairo Bull. (Cairo, IL) 5 Nov. 2/3: [from The Graphic, London] I’ve got a fakement from a friend, / An enterprising gent.

5. scraps.

1834		‘Jack Downing’ Andrew Jackson 69: If you can’t drink what I give you, I’ll set you down as some elbow shaker; or [...] dealer in fakements.
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open.

6. a trimming, a superfluous thing.

1840		Courier (Hobart, Tas.) 27 Oct. 3/1: [advert, from UK source] [A] pair of long sleeve moleskins, built hanky spanky, with a double fakement down the sides.
1871		London & Provincial Entr’acte 19 Aug. 3/3: There is too much of—what the slang dictionary terms ‘fakement’ about it [i.e. a performance]. Too many ropes, wires, and other paraphernalia.
1882		G.A. Sala in Living London (1883) Mar. 87: His corduroy ‘kicksies,’ with the ‘artful fakement’ at the bottom, are in strictest accordance with the aesthetic traditions of the ‘Cut’.
1896		A. Morrison Child of the Jago (1982) 128: The original out-and-out benjamins, or the celebrated bang-up kicksies, cut saucy, with artful buttons and a double fakement down the sides.
1906		E. Pugh Spoilers 158: The owner’s fitted this ’ere tower up with all manner of scientific fakements – telescopes an’ like that.
1942		W. Winchell On Broadway 27 Jan. [synd. col.] L. Beebe got in quite a temper about madame’s hats [...] they are too loaded with vegetables and fakements.
2019		P. Baker Fabulosa 292/1: fakement 1 a thing. 2 personal adornments.
2023		R. Milward Man-Eating Typewriter 19: The glimmer-fakements, the goldwork.

7. any action or problem.

1844		New Sprees of London 3: Nanty palary the rumcull of the Casey is green to the fakements.
1864		Derby Day 48: Something’s upset you, Littl’un [...] what’s the fakement. Let’s have it straightforward, and no kid.
1879		‘’Arry on the Road’ in Punch 9 Aug. 83/1: I tumbles to every fresh fakement as easy as go and be blowed.
1882		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 23 Sept. 3/2: [of a failed play] The fakement [...] will require a grand marshalling of dead heads to float it for even a brief run .

8. any form of printed material.

c.1850		Peeping Tom (London) 1 4/3: In the srange and very curious Work will be found [a] Flash Poetry Fakement.
1858		A. Mayhew Paved with Gold 283: ‘Here, take back this “fakement”.’ He flung ‘Lorts on Stonehenge’ on the floor.
1868		Sportsman 2 Dec. 2/2: Notes on News [...] The admirably ‘made up’ Whitechapel sailors, who never saw the sea, and used to sit long hours behind a coarse picture — professionally known as a ‘fakement’ — of nautical mishaps.

9. an object, whether or not uncommon.

1859		Wkly Varieties (Boston, MA) 3 Sept. 5/3: I was assured that this particular ‘fakement’ [i.e. a chamber-pot used to hold paint] is an article of common use among scene painters in all the theatres.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1911		E. Dyson ‘The Truculent Boy’ in Benno and Some of the Push 46: Oh, I was thinkin’ they [i.e. ears] might be handles ’r fakements t’ swim with.

10. (US) a theatrical costume.

1881

Daily L.A. Herald 13 Aug. 2/3: All actors, escept circus performers, are called fakirs and a costume is a ‘fakement’.

11. (Aus. und.) a criminal charge.

1910

Truth (Perth) 23 July 12/8: Don’t you think they has no power, nor / Cannot get a fakement squared.

12. (UK Und.) burglar’s tools.

1912		E. Pugh City Of The World 266: I could tell you of any gauze quantity of patent fakements, but all on ’em’s best left alone unless you’re with real mugs.
1928		Framlingham Wkly News 8 Dec. 3/7: Thieves’ Dialect [...] His ‘fakements’ are his burgling tools.