Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also dives) a pickpocket; an act of pickpocketing [dive v. (1)].

1704		A Gentleman Instructed 139: We might see a Dives transformed into a Lazarus, a Lord into a Laquay.
1728		J. Dalton Narrative of Street-Robberies 34: Going upon that Lay, Susan made a Dive into a Gentleman’s Pocket.
1781		G. Parker View of Society II 143: One of them runs before the person into whose pocket they intend making the dive.
1818		W. Perry London Guide 30: When [ladies] wore pockets with hoops, scarcely any operation in the light finger trade was easier than the dive, or putting in one’s hand.
1821		D. Haggart Autobiog. 104: I determined to have a dive; I got my forks in the cloy.
1832		in Egan Bk of Sports 146: My moll oft’ tips the knowing dive / When sea-crabs gang the stroll.
1837		A. Greene Glance at N.Y. II i: He made a dive for his pocket-book, but couldn’t make it out.
1887		Manchester Courier 12 Feb. 11/5: he was making a professional dive into the pockets of an unsuspecting housewife.
1898		Isle of Man Times 23 July 2/1: he made a ‘dive’ at one of the ladie’s pockets.
1933		Ersine Und. and Prison Sl.

2. a thief who stands outside a house or shop, inside which is a small boy who throws out goods that have been stolen [? he dives to catch the falling goods/the goods ‘dive’ from the window].

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: A dive, is a thief who stands ready to receive goods thrown out to him by a little boy put in at a window.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.

3. (orig. US, also diveroo) the voluntary losing of a fight by a boxer, presumably at the behest of a criminal bettor [he ‘dives’ to the canvas].

1916		implied in take a dive
1936		R. Chandler ‘Guns At Cyrano’s’ in Red Wind (1946) 220: Some gamblers tried to scare him into a dive.
1947		B. Schulberg Harder They Fall (1971) 203: Jones had agreed [...] to accommodate us with a diveroo in the third. [Ibid.] 210: No dive, no dough.
1955		B. Schulberg On the Waterfront (1964) 192: He never talked about dives.
1969		L. Schecter Jocks 231: [of the 1965 Ali-Liston fight] What it [i.e. Liston’’s knockout] really looked like was one of the quickest and most ungainly dives in the history of boxing.