Green’s Dictionary of Slang

to hang.

1654		New Brawle 12: Out, ye Whidling Shammock you, if you had not peach’d Sirrah, ye might have both been nubb’d like two Roagues together, but the Hemp was not ripe.
a.1674		‘Of the Budge’ Head Canting Academy (1674) 12: For when that he hath nubbed us, / And our friends tip him no cole, / He takes his Chive and cuts us down / And tips us into the hole.
1680		M. Stevenson Wits Paraphras’d 146: I too — But hold — I shall be nub’d / Then be it so — / For let me be hang’ d or grub’d.
1707		J. Shirley Triumph of Wit 195: The Prigger of Prancers is nubbed [The Horse-stealer is Hanged].
1712		‘Black Procession’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 37: See where they are rubb’d, / Up to the nubbing cheat where they are nubb’d.
1725		Life and Glorious Actions of [...] Jonathan Wilde 22: [He] was justly nubb’d by the Quilting Cove, at the Nubbing-cheat of West-Chester .
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. 1725].
1743		Fielding Life of Jonathan Wild (1784) IV 258: I am committed for the filing-lay, man, and we shall be both nubbed together.
1754		Scoundrel’s Dict. 15: The Horse-stealer is hanged – The prigger of Prancers is nubbed.
1760		C. Johnston Chrysal I 160: Whenever you have a mind to nub them, you need only take me up, and I can peach them all.
1790		‘The Bowman Prigg’s Farewell’ in Wardroper (1995) 283: This time I expect to be nubb’d.
1869		‘Thief-Catcher’s Prophecy’ in W.H. Logan Pedlar’s Pack of Ballads 142: Up to the nubbing-cheat, where they are nubb’d.