Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(orig. US) to take something from another person, to cheat someone out of, to insult; thus gouge!, an excl. uttered after a successful insult or theft.

1834		‘Jack Downing’ Andrew Jackson 149: He’d made provision enuft’ for a new [row] in the treaty with the Creeks, by jist gougin ’em out of amost all their lands.
1845		N.-Y. Trib. 26 Nov. n.p.: Very well, gentlemen! Gouge Mr. Crosby out of the seat, if you think it wholesome to do it [B].
1850		W.K. Northall Life and Recollections of Yankee Hill 23: I’ve hearn the blowers, (meaning the musicians,) but one part of the show you ain’t put out. No gouging, you know! I paid my money and I want to see the hull.
1871		N.-Y. Trib. 22 Mar. n.p.: Between plundering and gouging France [...] they will pay the expenses of the war a dozen times over.
1885		B. Harte A Ship of ‘49 Ch. 1: He’s regularly gouged me in that ’ere horsehair spekilation [F&H].
1904		G.H. Lorimer Old Gorgon Graham 120: We stood to lose a little over a million apiece right there, and no knowing what the crowd that was under the market would gouge us for in the end [DA].
1910		B.L. Bowen ‘Word-List From Western New York’ in DN III:vi 442: gouge, v. To defraud; to overcharge.
1929		S. Ornitz Haunch Paunch and Jowl 81: And who cramps us in stinking lousy holes and gouges us for big rents, eh, who? – American and German Jews.
1930		‘Dean Stiff’ Milk and Honey Route 112: When times get good they gouge the boss and the job hunter gets off lightly.
1944		P. Kendall Dict. Service Sl. n.p.: gouge . . . to cheat.
1952		(con. 1948) G. Mandel Flee the Angry Strangers 99: I’m being gouged, he thought.
1976		R. Carver Stories (1985) 42: ‘Stop gouging me, you bastard’.
1987		R. Campbell Alice in La-La Land (1999) 210: I ain’t trying to gouge you, but a man who don’t get paid for his work loses his pride.
2000		Guardian 12 May 9: The scandal of LA making itself wealthy by gouging the urban peasant class, and exploiting the wetbacks who do the dirty jobs.
2007		T. Dorsey Hurricane Punch 98: Price gouging. Bags of ice. Third-degree felony.