Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(a) (orig. UK Und.) to steal; thus lifting n.

c.1535		R. Copland Hye Way to the Spyttel House line 298: They wyll hym rob, and fro his good hym lyft.
1592		Greene Blacke Bookes Messenger 12: She could foyst a pocket well, and get me some pence, and lift nowe and then for a neede.
1608		Dekker Belman of London G3: They lift away Goblets, or other peeces of Plate.
1613		Middleton Chaste Maid in Cheapside V i: Let the law lift you now, that must have all, I have done lifting on you, and my wife, too.
1639		R. Davenport A New Tricke to Cheat the Divell III ii: Some cunningly dive into Pockets, whistlers, others lifts [sic].
1680		Head Eng. Rogue IV 152: Which Arts are divided into that of High-Padding, Low-Padding, Cloy-Filing, Bung-Nipping, Prancers Prigging, Duds-Lifting, Rhum-Napping, Cove-Cuffing, Mort-Trapping, Stamp-Flashing, Ken-Milling, Jerk the Naskin.
1817		W. Scott Rob Roy (1883) 292: Mony hundreds o’ them come down to the borders of the low country, where there’s gear to grip, and live by stealing, reiving, lifting cows.
1824		History of Gaming Houses & Gamesters 12: He who could lift more money than a steam engine.
1837		A. Greene Glance at N.Y. I v: His watch ain’t worth lifting [...] you must prig his wipe.
1848		‘Ned Buntline’ Mysteries and Miseries of N.Y. III 47: Well, old gal, wot’s the swag! Wot ’ave you lifted?
1852		Bombay Gaz. 6 July 3/4: To call this a ‘modification’ [...] is quite of a piece with the slang which substitutes the word lifting for the good old Saxon word stealing.
1858		Sydney Morn. Herald 13 Aug. 2/3: [T]hey may do a little ‘lifting’ — the slang phrase given in our colony to petty thieving — but they dare not attempt their wholesale robberies.
1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn).
1876		St Louis Globe-Democrat 19 Jan. n.p.: The thieves’ ‘fly cops,’ ‘pulled his leather,’ ‘got his boodle,’ ‘lifted his spark,’ ‘shoving the queer,’ ‘crossmen,’ ‘give him the flip,’ ‘wring his super,’ ‘collar his wipe,’ etc.
1877		Five Years’ Penal Servitude 243: Blessed if going over in the steamer from Southampton she didn’t lift a well of his russia with flimsies for 300l. in it.
1884		(con. c.1840) ‘Mark Twain’ Huckleberry Finn 95: Sometimes I lifted a chicken.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 24 Jan. 7/1: One morning, though, the merry, laughing, little optic was gone; a mean shunk had ‘lifted’ it during the small hours, and poor Gormley was left to find his way about as well as he could with the sight that still remained to him.
1889		Music Hall & Theatre Rev. 7 Sept. 7/1: The only difficulty is to lift the dumb bells at all. We would rather lift the £10. This would be much easier; but might end in six months’ rest.
1890		Sporting Times 26 Apr. 1/4: don’t you think you’re foolish to carry yer watch and chain like that? You might get it lifted.
1899		H. Lawson ‘“A Rough Shed”’ in Roderick (1972) 463: It will be sneaked from me to-day [...] and ‘touched’ and ‘lifted’ and ‘collared’ and removed by the crook.
1901		Boy’s Own Paper 25 May 531: You were in mighty thick with Cockle, and had every chance to lift the gold.
1905		‘Hugh McHugh’ Get Next 18: Some kind and thoughtful stranger had lifted fifty cents from George’s surplus.
1910		Wodehouse Gentleman of Leisure Ch. i: He’ll sand-bag you, and lift your watch as soon as look at you.
1916		J. Lait ‘Canada Kid’ in Beef, Iron and Wine (1917) 179: Every time he lifts a poke the whole machinery of the law begins to move.
1920		‘Sapper’ Bulldog Drummond 216: Henry is there, in a praiseworthy effort to lift the Duchess’s pearls.
1920		N.Z. Truth 7 Feb. 6/4: [headline] Joy-Riders Larking with Lifted Lizzies.
1924		G. Henderson Keys to Crookdom 29: Boy gangsters will lift a car and drive to some road house for a big drunk or drag jamboree.
1933		C. Himes ‘Prison Mass’ in Coll. Stories (1990) 166: A classy little roadster that he had thought was worth lifting.
1939		V. Davis Gentlemen of the Broad Arrows 59: You have never had your poke lifted?
1940		M. Marples Public School Slang 8: Stealing or appropriating [...] crib.
1948		I.L. Idriess Opium Smugglers 2: ‘I’ll bet it’s not his horse he’s riding,’ said Dick. [...] ‘He’s lifted it from some cattlemen up north.’.
1950		A. Gurney Bluey & Curley 11 Jan. [synd. cartoon] I’ve just done a six months stretch for lifting a few towels.
1958		R. Prather Scrambled Yeggs 8: He gets real wise and starts lifting my hard-earned cabbage.
1966		P. Willmott Adolescent Boys of East London (1969) 161: ‘Fiddling’ and ‘lifting’ from work does persist.
1974		G.F. Newman You Flash Bastard 84: Sneed had conveniently lifted a bottle of milk from outside either of these flats more than twice.
1978		R.D. Pharr Giveadamn Brown (1997) 43: ‘Somebody lifted all of Francis Williams’ holdings before he died’.
1983		J. Sullivan ‘May the Force be with You’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] Someone lifted one off the back of a lorry in Lewisham Grove earlier on!
1993		G. Disher Deathdeal [ebooThey lifted both cars from the long-term carpark] .
1998		G. Burn Happy Like Murderers 90: They were driving around [...] looking for bicycles to lift.
2000		C. Cook Robbers (2001) 10: Shooter splits, the partner shows up a minute later and lifts a carton of Marlboros and rifles the register.
2015		G. Disher Heat [ebook] Wyatt’s only interest in sport was that he’d once lifted the gate takings at the MCG.
2016		V. McDermid Out of Bounds (2017) 238: What kind of arse would lift a laptop belonging to a polis.

(b) to shoplift; thus on/upon the lift.

1781		G. Parker View of Society II 138: Lifters [...] This completed, off she sets, with thanks for being a customer, who has done them upon the Lift.
1866		J. Greenwood Little Ragamuffin 8: The bare notion of that great, fat, tender-hearted creature ‘lifting’ [...] anything from a shop [...] was too ridiculous.
1866		Night Side of N.Y. 60: It is but too often that these poor creatures [i.e. ‘pretty waiter-girls’] are linked in infamy with some well-known member of the ‘lifting fraternity’.
1877		Five Years’ Penal Servitude 245: Blessed if they didn’t identify her as having lifted some things out of the shop.
1934		J. Franklyn This Gutter Life 41: Crooks! – why, the dress your friend bought was only this afternoon lifted from one of the big stores!
1943		R. Chandler Lady in the Lake (1952) 14: Among her other activities [...] my wife occasionally finds time to lift things in department stores.
1957		‘Ed Lacy’ Lead With Your Left (1958) 8: A shop owner who claimed a couple of blouses had been lifted from his counters.
1960		C. Cooper Jr Scene (1996) 68: When we lifted the whiskey at Farnham’s today it was the same thing.
1971		L. Bangs in Psychotic Reactions (1988) 11: [The] bags that stores all seal records in so you won’t get nabbed for lifting as you trot out the door.
1995		J. Cameron Vinnie Got Blown Away 34: ‘Did some lifting, you know.’ Bit of shopping.
1997		Simon & Burns Corner (1998) 105: A couple of raggedy-ass, dope-eyed black men stumbling through a county shopping center, lifting appliances.
2000		N. Griffiths Grits 17: Thuh bottle uv brandy that Malcolm lifted out uv the Spar.

(c) to pick pockets.

1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1886		Eve. News (Sydney) 27 Apr. 7/4: Well, they took me and a mate on suspicion of robbing a man of £1, although it was only just before that I had lifted a lushington of £8.
1914		Chillicothe (MO) Constitution 2 Jan. 3/3: Jim, he lifted a leather from a bull who was standing in a hallway there at headquarters!
1924		O.O. McIntyre New York Day by Day 18 Jan. [synd. col.] 27 empty purses which Itchy confessed having lifted.
1932		E.S. Gardner ‘Bird in the Hand’ in Goulart (1967) 268: Didja know when I lifted it?
1940		R. Chandler Farewell, My Lovely (1949) 216: Once in a while he will lift a leather and plant it, to keep up his arrest record.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 125/2: Lift, v. 1. To pick pockets.
1961		(con. c.1935) R. Poole London E1 (2012) 33: Somebody would probably lift something from their pockets.

(d) (UK Und.) to remove or recover one’s booty from the place where it has been hidden.

1899

C. Rook Hooligan Nights 30: I went an’ lifted the stuff where I’d planted it.

(e) to arrest [1960s+ use of esp. army and police in Ulster].

1886		‘Lady Kate, the Dashing Female Detective’ in Roberts et al. Old Sleuth’s Freaky Female Detectives (1990) 14/2: Yes; he’s always lucky in getting out of a tight place, while better men are always ‘lifted’.
1916		J. Buchan Greenmantle (1930) 291: If Rasta had got you, or the Germans had had the job of lifting you, your goose would have been jolly well cooked.
1938		J. Curtis They Drive by Night 41: If there was just one thing that Mr. Shorty Mathews just couldn’t afford, why blimey it was to be lifted.
1948		J. O’Connor Come Day – Go Day (1984) 98: You can’t lift us! That fellow started it.
1956		J. Curtis Look Long Upon a Monkey 93: Wanted to be all ponced up when you was lifted, so’s the boys wouldn’t see you coming ragged-arsed into the nick.
1979		J. Morrow Confessions of Proinsias O’Toole 2: Diarmuid and Peter have been lifted.
1981		T. Wilkinson Down and Out 17: It’s up to you whether you go or not. It’s either that or you get lifted.
1996		P. Howard The Joy (2015) [ebook] A couple of the boys had been lifted.
1999		N. Cohn Yes We have No 124: If I was walking by myself, they’d lift me.
2002		J. Cameron Hell on Hoe Street 177: He wanted my assist lifting some geezer shafted a copper.
2005		P. Temple Broken Shore (2007) [ebook] ‘What’s your advice? ’ [...] ‘Lift the cunts on the way into town’.
2009		L. McIlvanney All the Colours 31: ‘There was a guy lifted for a breach at a Troops Out march in eighty-two’.
2012		J. Fagan Panopticon (2013) 152: ‘Will they see us?’ [...] ‘They better not or I’m fucking lifted again’.
2012		(con. 1980s) I. Welsh Skagboys 32: Couldn’t go to the hozzie, they was just lifting every fucker.
2020		G. Armstrong Young Team 72: ‘A seen Bailey gittin liftit, a screw swept him n they both fell’.

(f) to move a prisoner from one jail to another.

1990		Tupper & Wortley Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Lift. 2. To shift a prisoner often with little notice from one prison to another.
2000		J.J. Connolly Layer Cake 154: So he gets lifted off?

(g) to kidnap.

2002

J. Cameron Hell on Hoe Street 115: They reckoned he was their guest up Pakistan and they were responsible and he got lifted.