Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US Und.) to create the environment – a fake bookmaker’s, a fake stock dealer’s – in which an elaborate confidence trick can take place; to arrange a ‘fixed’ boxing match.

1905		Wodehouse ‘Kid Brady — How He Made His Debut’ in Captain Sept. 🌐 There’s bin framing-propositions made to him. He’s bin paid to lose.
1905		H. Green Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 226: I’ll give you a dollar framed up as this one was, and you can trim the other chap.
1913–14		Van Loan ‘For the Pictures’ in Taking the Count 323: The papers would yell that we were framing the fight.
1927		K. Nicholson Barker I ii: Let’s frame it so’s he falls for you.
1940		D. Maurer Big Con 159: He ‘frames’ the big store and creates the atmopshere [...] which goes with dignified, large-scale gambling.
1941		J. Archibald ‘Alibi Bye’ in Popular Detective June 🌐 I [...] ast him like a pal to gimme some of the scratch he got for framin’ that fight.
1973		W. Ritchie in Heller In This Corner (1974) 19: They were crooks, they framed fights, and being negro the poor guy had to follow orders.

2. (US Und.) to place in a Rogues’ Gallery.

1904

Number 1500 Life In Sing Sing 263: Pink had me framed and it was like finding rags to the pusher.

3. (US) to dress [i.e. to frame a picture].

1905

H. Green Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 30: An’ is the dames all framed up in decollaty rags, like the gals in the boilesque at Miners?

4. (US) to be in a situation.

1909

H. Green Mr. Jackson 59: I was framed to do whatever I felt like.

5. to fake, to concoct.

[1670		‘The Joviall Crew or Beggers-Bush’ in Euing Broadside Ballads No. 150: Sometimes I do frame, / My selfe to be lame].
1953		W. Brown Monkey On My Back (1954) 186: He was coached by other addicts to ‘frame a twister,’ fake a spasm in order to obtain a shot from doctors.
1906		A. Train Prisoner at the Bar 165: [T]he [defendant] sits in the pen chewing the cud of narcotic contentment and wondering whether the yarn he ‘framed’ for them will be believed.

6. (orig. US, also frame on, frame up) to concoct a false charge or accusation against, to devise a scheme or plot with regard to, by creating false evidence, witnesses etc.

1910		Committee of Fourteen Social Evil in N.Y. City 49: Magistrates [...] often hesitate to hold the prisoner because of a suspicion that the police have ‘framed’ the case, in order to use it in compelling proprietors of disorderly places to pay graft.
1911		G. Bronson-Howard Enemy to Society 112: We’ve got it on him. [...] We’re framed for him this time.
1913–14		Van Loan ‘No Business’ in Taking the Count 158: The tip got round town that Isidore was framed up for a benefit with an inferior person.
1916		J. Lait ‘Felice o’ the Follies’ in Beef, Iron and Wine (1917) 77: Police framed on me here, waited till they got me standing in front of gambling-house and threw me in.
1919		C.S. Montanye ‘White as Snow’ Detective Story 18 Feb. 🌐 The worst he could do would be to try and frame you, and he can’t get away with that.
1920		Ade Hand-made Fables 187: He preferred to sit back in some quiet Spot and frame up a few air-tight Cinches.
1927		H.C. Witwer Classics in Sl. 56: I’ll frame it to look like a suicide.
1929		W.R. Burnett Little Caesar (1932) 185: You know them bulls. They’ll frame you.
1931		C.B. Yorke ‘Snowbound’ in Gangster Stories Oct. n.p.: He had been clever in trying to frame me for the killing.
1934		J. Franklyn This Gutter Life 132: Were they sorry when they framed you up?
1937		P. Cheyney Dames Don’t Care (1960) 69: OK sour puss [...] but I wouldn’t be above framin’ you for something or other.
1941		V. Davis Phenomena in Crime 126: The Clapham Common murderer vowed he had been ‘framed’.
1957		C. MacInnes City of Spades (1964) 232: When the Law frames a case, they make a point of seeing it sticks. They have to.
1965		B. Jackson Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 88: Boys, you know it’s a damned shame when you have been fucked and also framed. / Now here you is with fifteen years or more / for some deeds that was done by some other sonofagun and you wasn’t even in on the dough.
1970		G.F. Newman Sir, You Bastard 30: [He] tried accusing Sneed of framing him.
1980		L. Kwesi Johnson ‘It Dread Inna Inglan’ in Inglan Is A Bitch 14: Dem frame-up George Lindo / up in Bradford Toun.
1999		N. Cohn Yes We Have No 40: His son is framed for embezzlement.
2000		Indep. Rev. 28 Jan. 10: A woman who, framed for the murder of her husband [...] spends six years in the slammer pondering revenge.
2000		G. Pelecanos Shame the Devil 127: If they found the murder gun there then somebody put it there and framed my brother up good.
2015		S. King Finders Keepers (2016) 319: I won’t be framed any more.
2015		L. McInerney Glorious Heresies 259: If there’s one thing worse than being the go-to for favours, it’s becoming the go-to for framing.
2017		A. Parks Bloody January 94: ‘Didn’t know you could even read [...] What is it? Dick and Jane Frame a Punter?’.
2018		C. Hammer Scrublands [ebook] ‘Were you going to frame him for the murders?’.
2020		C. Hiaasen Squeeze Me 101: ‘In this case, he happens to be innocent.’ [...] ‘So you’re sayin’ Keev’s been, like, framed?’’.

7. in ext. use, to arrange, to prepare.

1909		W. Irwin Confessions of a Con Man 70: I reported that the deal was framed.
1912		Mansfield (OH) News 7 Dec. 10(?)/3: Brother Russell declared, bo, that his crowd had already framed it up with some of the big guys in the music world to put the kibosh on this line of junk.
1916		J. Lait ‘Charlie the Wolf’ in Beef, Iron and Wine (1917) 26: He’s layin’ low, framin’ a big job somewhere.
1927		H.C. Witwer Classics in Sl. 71: About a week after Romeo has been drummed out of the burg, Juliet’s old man frames for his daughter to marry a guy with the silly name of Paris.
1930		(con. 1910s) D. Mackenzie Hell’s Kitchen 84: Many a job was planned in Millie’s flat [...] Many a ‘dance job,’ that is a daylight marauding, was framed.
1934		R. Sale ‘A Nose for News’ in Goulart (1967) 206: The Gordon skirt framed this whole thing.
1965		B. Jackson Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 85: But in those previous moments, boy, I framed my alibi.

8. (US) to trick or hoodwink.

1920		T. Thursday ‘Fall of the Wise’ in Top-Notch 1 Apr. 🌐 I’ll admit that you framed me pretty smooth.
1932		(con. 1910s) J.T. Farrell Young Lonigan in Studs Lonigan (1936) 66: He walked determining revenge, [...] of framing Studs on some stunt or other.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 200: Red figured we were framing him.