Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(UK Und.) to run away, to escape.

1873		Sl. Dict. (5th edn).
1879		‘Autobiog. of a Thief’ in Macmillan’s Mag. (London) XL 500: I had not been there [i.e. an industrial school] a month before I planned to guy (run away).
1879		J.W. Horsley in Macmillan’s Mag (London) xl 500: I planned with another boy to guy (run away).
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 5: We went to the gaff that night and tried to work, but spied a keen-eyed cop marking, and we guyed. [...] We went to the theatre that night and tried to steal, but saw a smart officer watching, and we got away from it.
1887		‘Dagonet’ ‘A Plank Bed Ballad ’ (in Referee 12 Feb.) n.p.: I guyed, but the reeler he gave me hot beef / And a scuff came about me and hollered.
1891		G.R. Sims ‘Pickpocket Poems’, Dagonet Ditties 92: I sneaked her lovely bracelet, / And round the corner guyed.
1907		Sun. Times (Perth) 4 Aug. 4/8: I’ve welshed and guyed away.
1908		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘Significant Strains’ Sporting Times 9 May 1/3: Then we guyed into the darkness, and beneath night’s ‘inky cloak,’ / We, by taking different roads, got clean away.
1931		‘English Und. Sl.’ in Variety 8 Apr. n.p.: Hop it or guy—Run.
1938		F.D. Sharpe Sharpe of the Flying Squad 263: Jack, guy for your b--- life. The Squad are here and they’re pinching everybody.
1973		(con. mid-1960s) J. Patrick Glasgow Gang Observed 65: Two other Shamrock boys had jumped out of the window [...] and ‘guyed the course’.