Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a hoax, a swindle.

1778		F. Burney Evelina (1861) 97: We shall see some crinkum-crankum or other for our money; but I find it’s as arrant a take-in as ever I met with.
1814		Austen Mansfield Park (1926) 46: What is this but a take-in?
1829		W.N. Glascock Sailors & Saints I 16: D--n it, this is the devil’s own take-in.
1836		T. Haliburton Clockmaker I 117: I guess that’s a rigular yankee trick, a complete take in.
1838		Crim.-Con. Gaz. 24 Nov. 109/1: Old lady in black sarsnet say it [i.e. the Bayaderes, Hindu dancing girls] all a take in — she tought to hab seen de stark naked.
1843		T. Haliburton Sam Slick in England I 123: What a devil of a take-in that is, ain’t it?
1849		W.H. Jeremie Furlough Reminiscences 8: The slave market at Cairo is regular take in.
1851		Banbury Guardian 16 Jan. 1/2: Poor Traveller, in the language of slang, thinks the whole thing [a] ‘dead take-in’.
1859		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. 107: take in a cheating or swindling transaction, sometimes termed ‘a dead take in.’.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 300/1: Anybody that looks on the board looks on us as cheats and humbugs, and thinks that our catalogues are all takes-in.
1870		Manchester Eve. News 16 Feb. 4/4: The Treason-Mongers of Tipperary Tea dust, on the contrary, is a palpable take-in!
1878		G.W. Hunt [perf. George Leybourne] ‘The Gay Masquerade’ 🎵 Fifty if she was an hour and when she unmasked, Oh! Nabob’s Pickles, an awfull [sic] take in.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 84: Take In, a swindling transaction.
1902		‘Banjo’ Paterson ‘Saltbush Bill’s Second Fight’ in Rio Grande’s Last Race (1904) 86: ’Twas a clean take-in, and you’ll find it wise — ’twill save you a lot of pelf — / When next you’re hiring a fighting man, just fight him a round yourself.
1909		L.W. Payne Jr ‘Word-List From East Alabama’ in DN III:v 379: take-in, n. A sell. ‘It was the most audacious take-in I ever heard of.’.
1929		J.B. Priestley Good Companions 23: It were a take-in, that.

2. a swindler.

1779		Mme D’Arblay Diary and Letters (1904) I 192: He is a take-in, and ought to be forbid.
1819		N.Y. City-Hall Recorder 4:1 6/2: The general complaint against [Cammann] was, that he was a bad man and a take-in.
1851		R.S. Surtees Young Tom Hall (1926) 201: I don’t believe he has anything [...] — a reg’lar take-in — hasn’t a rap, I dare say.