Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US Und.) to track down and arrest a criminal.

1872		G.P. Burnham Memoirs of the US Secret Service 155: ‘And the others?’ queried D---, waveringly. ‘Are all “piped down.” So it is well that you make a clean breast of it, Theodore.’.
1886		‘Lady Kate, the Dashing Female Detective’ in Roberts et al. Old Sleuth’s Freaky Female Detectives (1990) 14/3: The man whom Kate had ‘piped’ down as a burglar, a forger, and possible assassin, was leading a double life.

1. to recognize.

1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 5/2: Next morning, our ‘mob’ being all ready, we started separately for the steamboat, preferring the round-about way to the chance of being ‘piped off’.
1886		Eve. News (Sydney) 27 Apr. 7/4: We looked about to see whether any one was ‘piping’ us off.
1891		Sporting Times 24 Jan. 5/3: Don’t stir a finger, or they’ll pipe off the pair on us and murder us.

2. to survey, to assess.

1857		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 13:33 11 Apr. 3/1: Some of these fly coppers in piping a place off should keep their ogles out of the sun.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 12/1: Therefore on this occasion he determined to ‘pipe off’ as to how they would act, without appearing to notice it.
1879		A. Pinkerton Reminiscences 89: The members of the Scott-Dunlap party approached the building ‘to pipe it off,’ or take observations.
1883		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 3 Nov. 6/1: To ‘pipe a man off,’ so I have been told, means that your are playing the spy on him.
1887		Shields Dly Gaz. 24 Dec. 6/5: You sent me to pipe off old Jabbers and find out where he bought his goods.
1895		Shiner Gaz. (TX) 19 Dec. 1/3: I’m mopin’ ’long de railroad track waitin’ t’ pipe off de nex’ rattler an’ see if dey’s an empty on her.
1899		A. Binstead Houndsditch Day by Day 85: I just turns to pipe off the effect all this is ’avvin’ on ’em.
a.1901		Harrington & LeBrunn [perf. Marie Lloyd] Should the Sexes Bathe Together 🎵 If they didn’t, they’d ‘pipe ’em off’ [i.e. ogle female bathers] on the sly .
1905		Sporting Times 15 Apr. 2/3: Sir Alfred piped him off so cold an’ uppish, as much as to say, blymy, if these sorts is a-comin’.
1906		S. Ford Shorty McCabe 23 3: That got me curious right away, and I begins to pipe him off.
1912		E. Pugh Harry The Cockney 153: Don’t you let them think you’re piping ’em off.
1916		B. Hecht Wonder Hat in Mayorga (1919) 279: What makes you pipe her off as being in love?
1923		F. Anthony ‘Helping Out Gus’ in Me And Gus (1977) 12: We took a seat and piped off all the good-lookers.
1928		Truth (Brisbane) 1 Jan. 18/2: [P]rowling forms sidle from out of the shades and ‘pipe off’ those who pass along their ways.
1929		C.G. Gordon Crooks of the Und. 126: G--- would be ‘piping him off’ from some unobserved point of vantage.
1941		F. Sargeson ‘That Summer’ in Coll. Stories (1965) 169: We’d stand in shop doorways and Terry’d pipe off everyone that went past.

3. to leave, to depart.

1899

J. Flynt Tramping with Tramps 369: We piped off for the jail.

4. to dismiss.

1897		E.W. Townsend Chimmie Fadden 31: His Whiskers pipes me off just den, and he says, says he, – ‘Get outter here, you brat,’ he says.
1903		E.W. Townsend Sure 53: [D]e fine-haired end of de woild has got it bad only since de time I began to pipe it off.

5. to make jokes.

1914		E. Pugh Cockney At Home 203: If you pipe me off like that there agin I’ll give you sich a bloomin’ ’alf-looper you’ll think it’s your bloomin’ birthday!
1933		Ersine Und. and Prison Sl.

6. to inform, to explain.

1920		F. Packard White Moll 178: I gets piped off to wot’s up, an’ it’s de same story dat Pinkie’s told, an’ de crib’s cracked, an’ de money’s gone.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).

7. to ‘pump’ a person for information.

1930

J. Lait Gangster Girl 42: I’ve piped off this Gillespie set-up.