Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Aus.) to double-cross.

1868		H.L. Williams Black-Eyed Beauty 13: I think you’re coming the double over me, Bill [...] You must have got more than sixteen dollars for that watch! [HDAS].
1907		N.Z. Truth 26 Jan. 6/4: There is a highly spiced yarn current about one of these Fijian hatless Johnnies getting the double in a well-known society woman and ravishing her.
1924		C.J. Dennis ‘A Holy War’ in Chisholm (1951) 76: A crooked crook is Spike amongst the crooks, / A rat, ’oo’d come the double on ’is friends.

to give the slip, to evade by stratagem.

1815		Examiner 13 Aug. 7/1: He made inquiry for his companion, and just got sight of her in the public-house, but she gave him the double.
1821		D. Haggart Autobiog. 110: I saw my old friend, who was so young as allow me to give him the double, on pretence of going for my great-coat.
1835		Metropolitan Mag. XIV Sept. 334: Now, thought I, I’ve given them the double, for they had no means of following me at the rate I could get along.
1847		‘Epistle from Joe Muggins’s Dog’ in Era (London) 7 Mar. 3/2: I gave Muster Muggins the double, and tucking my tail between my legs, made a bolt of it.
1871		Ipswich Jrnl 5 Dec. 3/3: He may ‘give them the double’ down by the willows, for many a fox has been lost there.

to double-cross.

1851		‘Epistle from Joe Muggins’s Dog’ in Era (London) 10 Aug. 4/2: Now for ther Stakes Danebury put the dubble on us.
1884		H. Smart Post to Finish I 11: Old Greyson would never put the double upon us.
1891		F.W. Carew Autobiog. of a Gipsey 198: You old, smuggling horse-thief, you’ve put the double on me often enough, but I’ll stretch you for this job.
1894		J. Astley Fifty Years (2nd edn) I 162: I got warning to be off at once, as my man had ‘put the double on’.

1. to run off, from a creditor or from the authorities; thus tip the double to sherry, to elude the sheriff.

1770		‘The Buck’s Midnight Ramble’ Rural Lover’s Delight 27: [He] bilk’d the landlord of his shot, / And tipt the whores the double.
1781		G. Parker View of Society II, 176: Rum-Mizzlers. Fellows who are clever in making their escape; or, as it is termed in flash, tipping the double to sherry, getting off, or running away, when taken or going to be taken.
c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Double. To Tip any one the Double; to Run away in his or her Debt.
1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd, 3rd edn).
c.1800		‘Drunk in the Night’ No. 26 Papers of Francis Place (1819) n.p.: So without further trouble I tip’d them the double, left the whore and the scouts all the reckning to pay.
1811		P. Hawker Diary (1893) I 1 Oct. 35: I enticed him on by a feint [...] and then tipped him the double and hung upon his rear.
1821		‘An Amateur’ Real Life in London I 214: ‘What’s become of Sparkle,’ enquired Tom. ‘Stole away,’ was the reply. ‘Tipp’d us the double, has he.’.
1835		J.C. Apperley Nimrod’s Hunting Tour (1874) 191: Well, David, we thought you were lost; but we are not going to ‘tip you the double’* [...] *a slang phrase on the road for a passenger slipping away from a coach without paying the coachman.
1859		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. 109: TIP THE DOUBLE, to ‘bolt,’ or run away from a creditor or officer. Sometimes tip the double to sherry, i.e. the sheriff.
1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn) 132: ‘To tip (or give) the double,’ to run away from any person; to double back, to turn short round upon one’s pursuers and so escape, as a hare does. [Ibid.] 237: tip the double to sherry.
1866		Letters by an Odd Boy 162: Why, when I think it best to depart before my creditors become too urgent in their demands, should I be said to ‘tip the double?’ and carefully removing my goods before settling with my landlord, to ‘shoot the moon.’.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1876		‘Some Road Slang Terms’ in Malet Annals of the Road 395: 4. Of Coachmen Tipping the double...not paying at all.
1881		Newcastle Courant 2 Sept. 6/5: In his early life he had been a clerk [but] having ‘nicked a finnop’ [...] he was obliged to ‘tip the double’.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 86: Tip the Double, to run away.

2. to jilt.

1789		G. Parker Life’s Painter 135: I’ve tip’d them all the double, for / The sake of rowling Joe.
1842		Egan ‘Jack Flashman’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 142: She peached, so got him into trouble. / And then, tipp’d poor Jack the double!