Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US campus) to get possession of; thus, to convict.

1872		G.P. Burnham Memoirs of the US Secret Service 211: When Wal’ ‘went up,’ a big gun was spiked among the coney fraternity.
1900		E.H. Babbitt ‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:i 63: spike, v. To get possession of, in any way.

2. (also spike someone’s guns) to harm, to undermine.

1816		Proc. Old Bailey 18 Sept. 375/1: He said he knew where to find them, and he knew where to find the other thieves; but I had, spiked the job by calling out stop thief; for he knew where to have gone and caught them together dividing the cloth.
1888		‘’Arry on Marriage’ in Punch 29 Sept. 156/2: Ah! a lot of highflyers is spiked for the want of the ochre, wus luck!
1900		E.H. Babbitt ‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:i 63: spike, v. To obtain an advantage by unfair means.
1908		Sporting Times 25 Apr. 1/4: When yer gouty rheumatism spikes yer final battery have ’em bring yer here an’ shove yer in the hot box.
1937		W.M. Raine Cool Customer 59: His first idea was to light out. When we spiked that he had to shoot his way out.
1938		E.S. Gardner ‘Leg Man’ in Ruhm Hard-Boiled Detective (1977) 205: You beat him to it by spiking her guns.
1954		Wodehouse Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit 48: I had hoped that you might have found something [...] which would have enabled me to spike his guns.
1955		B. Schulberg On the Waterfront (1964) 179: Runty told him of his lone-wolf efforts to spike the intrenched union mob.
1962		Ragen & Finston World’s Toughest Prison 819: spike – To upset a plan or prevent the accomplishment of a design.
1996		J. Cameron It Was An Accident 197: Then they put my name up for spiking their plans.

3. (US) to subvert a sporting event .

1920

A. Baer Old Dame Rumor 19 Oct. [synd. col.] It is rumored that the Carp-Levinsky fight was spiked [...] Maybe it was a frame and maybe it wasn’t.

4. (US, also put a spike in something) to reject, to quash, to delete.

1936		A.E. Duckett ‘Truckin ’round Brooklyn’ in N.Y. Age 14 Nov. 7/1: Tranum [...] spikes rumors that he and the missus had alimony trouble.
1937		P. Cheyney Dames Don’t Care (1960) 178: You are the sample that got lost in the mail, you are the copy the news-editor spiked.
1942		H. Miller Roofs of Paris (1983) 45: It’s rather funny to see someone else getting spiked.
1969		D. Pendleton Executioner (1973) 128: Well, by God, Charlie, you just better put a spike in it.
1973		L. Shecter On the Pad 208: [I]f three black people are shot dead by gunmen in a dispute over, let’s say, narcotics money, bored deskmen spike the story.
1999		Indep. Rev. 22 July 4: An editor [...] spiked the ‘story’.
2000		Indep. Rev. 1 Feb. 8: He had decided to quit because editor Piers Morgan had spiked several critical stories.
2021		C. Hammer Opal Country 208: ‘Story got spiked’.