Green’s Dictionary of Slang

sewed up adj.

also sewn up
[sew up v.]

1. cheated, swindled.

[US]H.B. Stowe Uncle Tom’s Cabin 54: So, then, ye’r fairly sewed up, arn’t ye?
[UK]A. Mayhew Paved with Gold 224: If the men who were in his debt did not come up to the scratch on settling day he should be regularly ‘sewed up’.

2. ill, sick.

[UK]Hotten Sl. Dict. 224: SEWED UP, done up, used up.
[UK]Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

3. orig. of horses only, exhausted.

[UK]Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. 89: SEWED UP, done up, used up.
[UK]Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. [as cit. 1859].
[UK]Sl. Dict.
Headon Hill Caged xxii n.p.: She’s about sewn-up... tired herself out at the game [F&H].

4. drunk, thus sew up, to render drunk (see cite 1894).

[UK]‘A. Burton’ Adventures of Johnny Newcome III 171: However by cup after cup They left poor Patrick half sewed up.
[UK]High Life in London 20 Jan. 5/2: [They] inveigled poor Terry O’Loughlin into a dram shop [...] We need not say hat Terry was in a few hours ’sewed up’.
[US]D. Crockett Exploits and Adventures (1934) 241: My poor friend, Thimblerig, got sewed up just as about as tight as the eyelet-hole in a lady’s corset.
[UK]‘The Gape-Hole’ in Funny Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) III 48: The lush’d so fast, / Until at last / They all got sew’d up quite.
[UK]Punch I 278: We had a great night in London before I started only I got rascally screwed, not exactly sewed up, you know, but hit under the wing so that I could not very well fly.
[UK]Dickens ‘Slang’ in Household Words 24 Sept. 75/2: For the one word drunk [...] foggy, screwed, hazy, sewed up [etc.].
[US]T. Haliburton Season Ticket 301: ‘Are you sure you wasn’t drunk, uncle?’ [...] ‘I am sure I wasn’t sewed up, for I remember everything that happened.’.
[US]Vermont Transcript (St Albans, VT) 9 Nov. n.p.: When she gets a litle toddled she isn’t satisfied [...] and by the time she comes home to me she was regular sewed up.
[US]Star-Gaz. (Elmira, NY) 15 May 4/3: Yale College Slang [...] They were trying to sew me up [...] and i wasn’t going to get my leg jerked, so I cut the game.
[US]W.C. Gore Student Sl. in Cohen (1997) 18: Sewed up [From Dutch seeuwkt, sick, Hotten’s dictionary of slang. Probably related to sewed up, to rest upon the ground, as a ship, when there is not sufficient depth of water to float her; so, to be brought to a standstill; to be ruined or overwhelmed] Drunk.
[US]‘Hugh McHugh’ I Need The Money 90: Uncle Peter, the sedate and dignified, sewed-up to the eyebrows.
[US]M. Prenner ‘Sl. Synonyms for ‘Drunk’’ in AS IV:2 102: basted [...] sewed up.
[UK]‘William Juniper’ True Drunkard’s Delight.
[UK]J. MacLaren-Ross ‘A Bit of a Smash in Madras’ in Memoirs of the Forties (1984) 272: Mind you, he was properly sewn-up himself.
[US]J.D. Macdonald Slam the Big Door (1961) 63: You were all sewed up so completely you wouldn’t have been aware of a pass.

5. pregnant.

[UK]Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

6. confirmed, unsusceptible to error, esp. of a sporting contest in which the result has already been assured.

[US]Sun (NY) 27 July 40/1: ‘Looks like the boys have made another good touch,’ said Wise Jimmy. ‘In what line?’ the listener asked [...] ‘I heard everything in the sporting line was sewed up tight’.
[US]D. Hammett ‘The Scorched Face’ Story Omnibus (1966) 89: You can trust a man just as easily if you have him sewed up.
[US]W. Winchell On Broadway 1 Nov. [synd. col.] The very youthful Jack MacLean has the gent who owns the patents sewed up.
[US]Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 66: There never was a town sewed up as tight as Burnham was under the syndicate.
[Aus]D. Stivens Jimmy Brockett 195: Tom Shaw and Harry have five of the six councils sewed up, and the sixth will toe the mark.
[US]C. Cooper Jr Scene (1996) 76: It couldn’t be the Rollers. Didn’t the Man say that he had the Sixth Precinct sewed up?
[NZ]G. Slatter Pagan Game (1969) 127: Got it all sewn up, haven’t you? The Invincibles.
[US]J. Ellroy Brown’s Requiem 30: When she’s got the wop sewed up, she’ll give me the boot.

7. set on a path, committed.

[US]San Diego Sailor 4: I was all sewed up now and I knew I wanted that kid more than I ever wanted anything.