frame-up n.
1. a plot, a plan.
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Powers That Prey 141: He could arrange a ‘frame-up’. | |
| ‘The Defence of Strikerville’ in From First To Last (1954) 26: They knew something about this frame-up to attack the miners’ camp. | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Over the Top 183: The boys in the battalion gave us the ‘Ha! Ha!’ They weren’t in on our little frame-up. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Digger Dialects 24: frame-up — A scheme; a conspiracy. | |
| Morn. Tulsa Dly World (OK) 18 June 32/4: The frame-up for for John [...] to tip off the old lady to give us a chunk o’ dough to invest. | |
| Man’s Grim Justice 47: The most important part of the job is the frame up [...] Always look your mark over carefully before you go up against it. | |
| I Can Get It For You Wholesale 67: Here and there you could still hear somebody yelling ‘double-cross’ and ‘frame-up’. | |
| ‘Raw, Medium, and Well Done’ in Blue Ribbon Western June 🌐 When we got finished with the frame, the professor was the picture. |
2. the concoction of criminal guilt or charges; also attrib.
| A. Mutt in Blackbeard Compilation (1977) 23: We were never divorced. That was just a frame up with the judge to scare you. | |
| in Black (1926) 317: It [i.e. a prison wall] was clear and free from marks today as ever it was. The whole thing was a frame-up. | |
| ‘They All Want to Play Hamlet’ Smoke and Steel 24: They have not exactly seen their fathers killed / Nor their mothers in a frame-up to kill. | |
| Night and the City 175: It’s a frame-up. The bastards [...] they won’t let you live. | |
| Hollow (1950) 163: We’ve got to admit the possibility that the thing was a frame-up [...] to implicate Gerda Christow. | |
| One Lonely Night 22: A deliberate frame-up with witnesses paid to make the wrong identification. | |
| Real Cool Killers (1969) 74: What’s this, some kind of frame-up? | |
| Gaily, Gaily 56: Most of the trials I covered in the Cook County Criminal Courts were redolent with frame-ups, police fixings, witness buying, jury bribing, perjuries, et cetera. | |
| Carlito’s Way 117: Conspiracies with people I never heard of [...] a frame-up. | |
| Yes We have No 245: The Mirror’s accusations proved a frame-up. | |
| Big Ask 215: I’d given Frank Farrell the opportunity to finish the frame-up job. | |
 | ‘She Died with Grace’ in ThugLit Jan. [ebook] The Feds are playing us all like puppets. It amounts to a frame-up. |
3. a ‘fixed’ sporting encounter.
| Sun. Times (Perth) 12 June 2nd sect. 10/3: The American sporting scribe who has brought down the curses of the boxing fraternity on his head by declaring that the Johnson-Jeffries fight is to be a ‘frame-up’ refers to Johnson thus [etc]. | |
| Bar-20 Days 160: Wayfaring strangers were ‘trimmed’ in ‘frame-ups’ at cards. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 31 Dec. 26/3: The fight in which ‘Gunboat’ Smith outpointed him is now recognised to have been a ‘frame-up.’. | |
| ‘Sock of Ages’ in Fight Stories Oct. 🌐 I declare all bets off! This looks like a frame-up! | |
| ‘Beyond Justice’ in Spicy Detective Stories Nov. 🌐 ‘Frame-up!’ she said [...] ‘It was in the bag. Ben Berkin bribed the judges so you could win!’. | |
| ‘This Was Pugilism’ in New Yorker 19 Nov. 118: A fix had been arranged fifteen days before the bout took place [. . . .] but [. . .] he decided not to go through with the frameup. |
4. (US) a trick, a deception.
| My View on Books in N.Y. Times Mag. 30 Apr. 5/7: Gil Blas was a foxy outfit and that’s no frame up. |
5. a character assessment.
| Shorty McCabe on the Job 221: You mean I can do a quick frame-up without feelin’ the party’s bumps or consultin’ the cards? |
In phrases
1. under suspicion, usu. with some grounds, of having committed a crime [note also racetrack use, the frame holds the numbers of the winning horses in a race].
| Pitcher in Paradise 73: In racing metaphor, he saw his number in the frame, and knew that the whole credit of the stable was at stake. | |
| Phenomena in Crime 36: You in trouble? [...] In the frame? | |
| Signs of Crime 184: Frame, in the Suspected, with some good reason, of being concerned in a serious crime; ‘Well in the frame’ is even stronger. | |
| Detective is Dead (1996) 113: I’ve heard they’ve got someone in the frame. | |
| Layer Cake 125: I’m in the frame so these cunts get a better pension. | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | Gutted 82: Feck me, ’tis yerself in the frame for murder and you walk the road like a brass. |
2. involved in a situation.
| A Prisoner’s Tale 138: For a moment he thought it might be DI Pyall calling about something else in the frame to charge him with should his appeal go well. | |
| It Was An Accident 9: You only got to let me know if you’re in the frame. | |
| Hell on Hoe Street 241: We put Mum in the frame carrying that Kwiksave bag. She was the decoy. |