Green’s Dictionary of Slang

to beat, to thrash; to box; thus fibber n., a prizefighter.

1612		Dekker O per se O N4: To Fib a Coues Quarrons in the Rome pad for his Loure in his bung that is to say [...] to beate a man by the high-way for the money in his purse.
1648		Dekker Canters Dict. Eng. Villainies (9th edn).
1665		Head Eng. Rogue I 49: Fib, To beat.
1674		Head Canting Academy (2nd edn).
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew.
1707		J. Shirley Triumph of Wit 194: [as cit. 1612].
1719		A. Smith Lives of Most Notorious Highway-men, etc. (1926) 205: Fib, to beat.
1728		Defoe Street Robberies Considered 32: Fib, to beat.
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict.
1741		Canting Academy, or the Pedlar’s-French Dict. 115: To beat him To fib him.
1754		Scoundrel’s Dict. 19: To beat – Fib.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
c.1800		‘Tom the Drover’ No. 30 Papers of Francis Place (1819) n.p.: I’m a lad that can Fib with the queerest.
1810		‘A New Song Called The Mill’ in Holloway & Black (1979) I 251: He’s come to mill our champion Cribb, / And doth declare he will him fib.
1819		‘One of the Fancy’ Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress xvii: The Man of Colour, to prevent being fibbed, grasped tight hold of Carter’s hand.
1820		Jack Randall’s Diary 32: My friend is once more putting in his claim to be considered as an accomplished Fibber, and that his declaration of ‘cutting his sticks,’ is all – a Flam.
c.1825		T. Jones ‘The True Bottom’d Boxer’ in Egan Bk of Sports (1832) 74/1: Fibbing a nob is most excellent gig, my lads.
1832		S. Warren Diary of a Late Physician in Works (1854) III 86: Slash, smash—fib away—right and left!
1842		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 15 Jan. n.p.: Oliver [...] endeavored to fib him as he went down.
1845		Bell’s Life in Sydney 13 Sept. 3/1: Doughy fibbed and upper cut him left and right.
1848		Dickens Dombey and Son (1970) 712: He was severely fibbed by the Larkey one, and heavily grassed.
1853		‘Cuthbert Bede’ Adventures of Mr Verdant Green (1982) I 118: He told Verdant, that his claret had been repeatedly tapped, [...] and his whole person put in chancery, stung, bruised, fibbed, propped, fiddled, slogged, and otherwise ill-treated.
1853		N.Y. Clipper 9 July 1/6: George [...] was fibbed heavily.
1860		Bell’s Life in Sydney 7 Apr. 4/2: Dan [...] fibbed him severely till he fell.
1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1892		in Punch 3 Dec. 262: Some smart fibbing, in which neither could claim an advantage, ensued.
1897		Atchison Dly Champion (KS) 12 Mar. 2/1: We hear nothing now of how one of the men landed with his ‘bunch of fives’ upon his opponent’s ‘peeper,’ or thumped him upon his ‘brain canister,’ or ‘fibbed him on his portmanteau’.
1927		(con. 1835–40) P. Herring Bold Bendigo 135: He played the fiddle as if he was in chancery, fibbing at it with a punishing right until the lacerated catgut squeaked and squealed.