Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to give up, esp. a love affair, to abandon, to leave.

1880		D.W. Barrett Life and Work among Navvies 37: ‘Nobby’ feels ashamed of a thrashing he got; ‘jacks up,’ goes on tramp.
1881		Dundee Courier (Scot.) 18 Feb. 7/5: Blest if I don’t jack it up. It’s no use with such as he spying on us.
1889-90		D. Sladen in Barrère & Leland Sl., Jargon and Cant I 492/1: Jack up, to (Australian), to throw up, to abandon; very probably a corruption of ‘chuck’.
1890		‘Rolf Boldrewood’ Miner’s Right 174: It’s not like an Englishman to jack up and give these fellows best.
1906		E. Pugh Spoilers 65: You’d jack it up afore you drew your fust week’s pay.
1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 158/2: Jack up (Street). To quit – especially in love affairs.
1915		‘Ian Hay’ First Hundred Thousand (1918) 113: These girls will play the angel-of-mercy game for a week or two, and then jack up and confine their efforts to getting hold of a wounded officer.
1996		J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 246: But his dour Yorkie pop reckoned the odds against the Charlieists knocking off the English throne were astronomical. So he jacked up.

2. to collapse, either physically or financially, to be completely exhausted.

1890		‘Rolf Boldrewood’ Colonial Reformer III 162: Suppose he goes lame all of a sudden! suppose he jacks up!
1892		‘’Arry in ’Arrygate’ in Punch 24 Sept. 133/1: Who’d ha’ thought of me jacking up sudden, and giving the Sawbones a turn?
1897		‘Price Warung’ Tales of the Old Regime 93: Bunt ‘jacked-up’ on half rations, and fell ill.
1978		R.D. Pharr Giveadamn Brown (1997) 57: I‘ need bread. I’ll pay you back.’ [...] ‘Now, why the hell couldn’t I have realized that you might be jacked up?’.

3. to ruin, to exhaust completely, to mess up.

1930		J. Lait Gangster Girl 103: Anybody I can’t jack up I can bang off.
1997–2000		Da Bomb 🌐 16: Jackup: I. To mess up. 2. To ruin.
2008		‘Grandmaster Flash’ Adventures 26: ‘Who the hell broke my radio?’ [. . . .] ‘Butsy did it! I saw him jackin’ it up just the other day!’.
2017		D. Winslow The Force [ebook] ‘Yeah, I can probably straighten that out.’ By slipping an envelope to ADA Michaels, who will find that the chain of evidence got jacked up.

4. (Aus., also jack up on) to refuse to carry out an instruction, to refuse to work, to offer resistance; thus jacked up/up on, annoyed with, disenchanted.

1889		Answers 23 Mar. 265/2: When a man jacks up his work – will not do his tasks that is to say [F&H].
1903		J. Furphy Such is Life 142: I say, Tom; I ain’t a man to jack-up while I got a sanguinary leg to stan’ on; but I’m gone in the inside.
1936		(con. 1830s–60s) ‘Miles Franklin’ All That Swagger 393: Grandfather always took Grandma with him everywhere until she jacked up.
1951		(con. 1941) E. Lambert Twenty Thousand Thieves 155: Already the battalion buzzed with the news: B Company had ‘jacked up!’.
1953		T.A.G. Hungerford Riverslake 67: The manager took the old girl’s part, so the Balt sheila jacked up. Looks like the cooks might go out, too. [Ibid.] 163: Would you have jacked up because Bellairs took the Balt’s money?
1959		(con. 1940s) ‘David Forrest’ Last Blue Sea 38: They’ll jack-up like they did on the Townsville wharf.
1963		‘Nino Culotta’ Gone Fishin’ 89: They ‘light up’ cigarettes; they say ‘mind out’ when there is danger; they ‘jack up’ when they wish to do nothing.
1972		J.B. Keane Letters of Irish Parish Priest 62: ‘You can tell the bishop from me,’ he shouted, ‘that if he don’t mind his own business I might jack the whole thing up.’.
1977		in K. Gilbert Living Black 38: This day, our blokes, they jacked up on the cops. They all got stuck into ’em.
1983		R. Aven-Bray Ridgey-Didge Oz Jack Lang 32: Jack Up Refuse to obey a prison order.
1987		M. Bail Holden’s Performance (1989) 310: He’d jacked up over being told to buzz off every afternoon.
1990		Tupper & Wortley Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Jack up. To refuse to cooperate.
1999		G. Seal Lingo 198: Other uses of up include [...] the negative: jack up to refuse to do something and not up to much.
2006		B. Matthews Intractable [ebook] I jacked up. Then it was on for young and old. They piled into the cell but they kept hitting each other because they were in a confined space.

5. (UK Und./Aus.) to plead ‘not guilty’.

1950		News (Adelaide) 1 July 5/3: ‘He wants to jack up, but his mouthpiece drums him to nod the nut, and he cops the clock in boob’ .
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak.

6. (US campus) to fail to work, to be injured.

1995		L. Stavsky et al. A2Z 56/1: jacked up – adj. messed up or beaten up.
2003		Eble Campus Sl. Nov. 4: jack up – to injure, to cause to malfunction: Her foot was jacked up after she fell.