Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Aus./N.Z.) to intimidate, spec. to demand money with menaces; thus attrib.

1939		K. Tennant Foveaux 173: Curly just stood over Bardy for three quid.
1946		Courier-Mail (Brisbane) 26 Sept. 3/5: It was alleged that Daniel ‘stood over’ Hodge and ‘bashed’ him until he signed.
1959		D. Niland Big Smoke 28: Anyway, you boys know my form. Nobody stands over me.
1965		J. O’Grady Aussie Eng. (1966) 81: All Australians object to being ‘stood over’.
1977		K. Gilbert Living Black 304: If you stand over or hoon from the goomees you get bottled or kicked.
1978		G. Newbold ‘Social Organization of Prisons’ in dissertation U. Auckland 325: Standing Over [...] is used to describe any individual or group bullying tactics, and includes such activities as extortion, the enforcement of will by one upon another, or simply aggressiveness in general.
1982		G. Newbold Big Huey 117: Some of the screws were saying we’d stood over the inmates to make them vote the way they did.
1984		B. Ellem Doing Time 103: ‘Well, this fellow had been trying to stand over me and I just won’t put up with it’ .
1991		M.B. ‘Chopper’ Read Chopper From The Inside 85: Even standover men and torturers now stand over people connected with the drug world.
1992		A. Duff One Night Out Stealing 9: ‘I wanna fight if some arsehole’s gonna stand over me. Shit, I thought you woulda learnt that’.
1999		D. Looser ‘Boob Jargon’ in NZEJ 13 35: standover adj. To threaten someone in order to take something from them [...] ‘standover tactics’.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 176/2: stand over v. to threaten someone in order to take something from him, officially termed, ‘demanding with menace.
2004		M.B. ‘Chopper’ Read Chopper 3 70: When you’re in the business of standing over people and being a criminal garbage collector [etc.].
2004		L. Redhead Peepshow [ebook] Worked vice in the eighties and was rumoured to stand over pro’s and have a stake in brothel.
2016		D. Whish-Wilson Old Scores [ebook] ‘You won’t be able to stand over him, not even you. He’s mean’.
2020		D. Whish-Wilson Shore Leave 191: ‘Who knew that he was standing over you?’.