Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (UK Und.) to cheat.

a.1790		H.T. Potter New Dict. Cant (1795) n.p.: [...] he slips up some alley or lane and mizzles off, having fairly turned you up.
1827		Guards 89: [W]e doubt if the man devoted to [...] the turning up of a Knave, (and all knaves deserve to be turned-up another way,) a King, or Queen, can be faithful to any engagement.

2. to remove one’s custom.

1812

Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang. in McLachlan (1964) 276: turn up: To turn up a particular house, or shop, you have been accustomed to use, or deal at, signifies to withdraw your patronage, or custom, and visit it no more.

3. to ignore a former friend or end a sexual relationship.

1812		Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang. in McLachlan (1964) 276: To turn up a mistress, or a male acquaintance, is to drop all intercourse, or correspondence, with them.
1824		History of Gaming Houses & Gamesters 34: [W]hen he thought proper to ‘turn her up,’ as the gamblers phrase it, he took on with the wife of a more humble person still.
1834		‘Oh, No, I Never Mention It’ in Flash Chaunter 26: They hint that she has turn’d me up, / But that is all my eye.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 44/1: He had had a quarrel with his ‘blowen,’ and she was on the point of ‘turning him up.’.
1896		Pink & LeBrunn [perf. Marie Lloyd] Chance Your Luck 🎵 And if you find she loves another, / Turn her up and mash her mother.
1925		(ref. to 1900s) E. Jervis 25 Years in Six Prisons 213: When the other girls chaffed her over Pasha’s black face, she turned him up!

4. to run away.

1812		Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang. in McLachlan (1964) 276: turn up: To quit a person suddenly in the street, whether secretly or openly, is called turning him up.
1859		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. 112: Turn up to quit, change, abscond, or abandon; ‘Ned has turned up,’ i.e.run away; ‘I intend TURNING IT UP,’ i.e. leaving my present abode or altering my course of life.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 18/1: Every one would set at him, and win his money, and then ‘turn up,’ as he had done.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1999		G. Seal Lingo 38: Other convict terms that are either still with us or have only relatively recently dropped include: [...] stash, stretch, swag, turn up, and yarn.

5. to set free, to release (a prisoner), to acquit.

1811		Lex. Balatronicum n.p.: Turned Up. Acquitted; discharged.
1833		[T. Wontner] Old Bailey Experience 295: [Young prisoners] becoming impertinent and troublesome, saying they had been told their sentence — ‘only a teazing and turned up’ (discharged).
1845		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 1 Nov. 83/4: After [...] a perfect ‘frisking’ of their persons in search of stolen property, they were ‘turned up’ and allowed to depart.
1847		Bell’s Life in Sydney 8 May 2/6: [N]o less than three of the more fortunate offenders were, in the slang of the yard, ‘turn’d up’.
1850		Cork Examiner 6 Feb. 4/4: Thirty-six were cast for death, and only one was topped (hanged) — the very one that expected to be turned up (acquitted).
1859		W. Burrows Adventures of a Mounted Trooper 54: The female friends [...] are also engaged in considering [...] whether poor Bill, Tom, or Harry will be ‘pinched’ or ‘turned up.’.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 12/1: Lloyd was tried at the Old Bailey, along with Tommy Sales, for the murder of Mr. Bellchambers. Lloyd got ‘turned up,’ but Sale [sic] was convicted and executed. [Ibid.] 28/2: He was just about being ‘turned up’ when another ‘cop’ entered, and said that a gentleman ouside complained of having lost his gold watch [...] and that he would like to look at the person they were searching.
1872		G.P. Burnham Memoirs of the US Secret Service 118: He was arrested, and very soon afterwards was ‘turned up’ by somebody, and went clear. Did he buy his way out of this dilemma?
1879		London Life 24 May 4/2: [T]he counsel for the Treasury [...] let the matter drop, and George Mitchell was ‘turned up’.
1885		Ledger (Noblesville, IN) 14 Aug. 6/2: ‘I told all the screws when they “turned me up”’.
1889		Clarkson & Richardson Police! 321: Discharged before the magistrates ... Turned up.
1895		Truth (Sydney) 19 May 4/5: Asprey was caught [...] and I lent her £5 to defend herself, and she got ‘turned up’.
1901		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 6 Mar. 1/5: The tale-tellers will have to breast the bar, but, as usual, it will be 9 to 2 on them getting turned up.
1903		J. London People of the Abyss 93: The guardians, w’en they see wot I’d been doin’, gives me a tanner each, five o’ them, an’ turns me up.
1919		V. Marshall World of Living Dead (1969) 83: Three charges agin’ me — righteous, vag, an’ resistin’. Fitted on first two — turned up on third.
1931–4		D. Clemmer Prison Community (1940) 336/2: turn up, vph. To discharge from court.

6. to abandon.

1812		Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang. in McLachlan (1964) 276: turn up: to desist from, or relinquish, any particular habit or mode of life, or the further pursuit of any object you had in view, is called turning it up.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue [as cit. 1812].
1830		Egan Finish to the Adventures of Tom and Jerry (1889) 221: He was frequently compelled to turn-up his street acquaintances who could not stand cutting-up.
1834		‘Oh, No, I Never Mention It’ in Flash Chaunter 26: They hint that she has turn’d me up, / But that is all my eye.
1859, 1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor III 206/2: I wouldn’t turn him up, or act nasty to him.
1877		J. Greenwood Dick Temple II 262: I’ve turned up the old game, and am trying my hand at another.
1887		‘’Arry on Angling’ in Punch 30 July 45/2: So sez I: ‘Let us turn up this barney, and toddle ashore for some grub.’.
1893		P.H. Emerson Signor Lippo 54: The old man [...] tells ’im if he’ll turn the gargle up he’ll take ’im ’ome.
1903		N. Gould Straight Goer (1915) 33: He turned up his claim at Golden Lead in disgust, coming into Moraine in search of more profitable work.
1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 52/1: Turn-up [...] used socially. ‘Ginger May’s turned me up’, does not mean that this yellow-haired Circe has committed an assault upon the speaker, but has abandoned him.
1914		Bulletin (Sydney) 15 Oct. 13/2: [S]ince then the best trappers have had to yakker hard for undressed crust, and all but the best have turned the game up as unprofitable.
1925		E. Jervis 25 Years in Six Prisons 22: He has done twenty-five years in prison. But five or six years ago he ‘turned up the game.’.
1930		J. Lait Put on the Spot 132: Goldie would have turned him up at the slightest rebellion.
1935		C. Drew ‘Gozo’ in Bulletin 27 Mar. 46/1: The referee stepped over and crowned the other gorilla. He thought our bird had turned the battle up .
1949		L. Glassop Lucky Palmer 163: What a beaut you turned out to be. It’s enough to make a man turn up betting for life.
1991		R.G. Barratt ‘An Artful Dodger’ in What Do You Reckon (1997) [ebook] He’d turned up the SP betting and had a barrow at the South Melbourne markets.

7. (UK Und.) to inform against someone, to turn someone over to the police.

1810		Morn. Post (London) 31 July 3/3: When Bill Soames heard that Sir Francis Slygo sneaked off from the Tower in a swimmer, he observed he was a shycock and that all his pals ought to turn him up.
1842		Colonial Times (Hobart) 26 Apr. 3/2: [T]he prisoner said, in case he got ‘turned up’ for Smith’s robbery, he might get ‘bellowsed’ for the soldier that they ‘ramped’.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 31/2: I’ll turn you up [...] I’ll have you to rights.
1884		‘Career of a Scapegrace’ in Leicester Chron. 10 May 12/1: You’ve never done any cadging, I suppose; never mind, I shan’t turn you up now’.
1911		G. Bronson-Howard Enemy to Society 289: Van Tromp ’ll have to turn himself up if he turns Stephen; he stole the boy and he’s the most to blame.
1916		J. Lait ‘Charlie the Wolf’ in Beef, Iron and Wine (1917) 42: A ‘stool pigeon’ turned them up to Kiernan for fifty cents.
1929		W.R. Burnett Little Caesar (1932) 231: Maybe you better call the bulls and turn me up.
1932		R.E. Burns (con. 1929) I Am a Fugitive 123: It seems the party who turned you up [...] went to Swanson’s office a couple of days ago and put in the ‘rap’ there.
1940		R. Chandler Farewell, My Lovely (1949) 33: Now he’s looking for the fink that turned him up eight years ago.

8. to dismiss from a job.

1861

(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor III 352/2: They have been fancy-men in their prime, but, to use the words of one of the craft, ‘got turned up.’.

9. to alter, to change.

1859, 1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
1881		Trumble Sl. Dict. n.p.: ‘On the Trail.’ If you do [...] I will fix my diggers in your dial-plate and turn it up with red [F&H].

10. (US) to rob.

1887

Lantern (New Orleans, LA) 20 Oct. 3: [They] were turned up for all their loose change.

11. (US) to give up, to weaken.

1929

W.R. Burnett Little Caesar (1932) 164: Could it be possible that the great Pete Montana was turning up?

12. (Aus. Und.) to take the blame for someone else’s crime.

1967

‘Whisper All Aussie Dict.’ in Kings Cross Whisper (Sydney) xli 4/5: turn up: To be turned up was for a partner in any crime to take the full blame allowing his buddy to go free.

13. to annoy.

2005

H. Mantel Beyond Black 109: ‘Look at you,’ she said. ‘Wash your face, you’re running in sweat, you bloody turn me up.’.

14. see turn in v.²

15. see turn over v.¹ (5)