Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a gold watch and seals.

1718		C. Hitchin Conduct of Receivers and Thief-Takers 15: A Suit, alias Gold-Watch, or two or three Cloaks, alias Gold-Watch Cases.
1839		(con. 1715) W.H. Ainsworth Jack Sheppard (1917) 141: A fence, or receiver, bargaining with a clouter, or pickpocket, for a suit — or [...] a watch and seals.
1859, 1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 82: Suits, watch, chain and seals.

2. (US) a plainclothes detective.

1996		(con. 1946) G. Pelecanos Big Blowdown (1999) 70: The suits they got on the case, they haven’t turned up a thing.
1998		B. Hubbard Substantial Evidence 162: The case had been assigned [...] to Ronnie Goolsby, one of the ‘suits’ in our division.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 181/1: suit n. 2 a detective .
2006		(con. 1972) Jurgenson & Cea Circle of Six 13: Chief of Detectives Albert Seedman—my boss. He entered the mosque, followed by three other unrecognizable suits.

3. (also gray-suit, three-piece suit) a member of management, a businessman, anyone who has to wear a suit for their daily work, as opposed to more casually dressed creative or freelance workers, or those in jobs that in any case have no need for suits; thus an uncreative, authoritarian person.

1954		‘Hot Rod Lexicon’ in Hepster’s Dict. 25: The gray suit look like he had a lot of money.
1967		W. Murray Sweet Ride 152: One of the rumpled suits began to cry.
1975		J. Carr Bad (1995) 66: When some gray-suit asked me which trade, I replied ‘butchery’.
1977		Eagle (Bryan College Station, TX) 12 June n.p.: He [.e. Robert Blake] tells [Dan] Rather and producer Igor Oganesoff that it the network ‘suits’ (i.e. executives) don’t like the way he’s doing the show,, they can ‘take me off the air’.
1981		J. Sullivan ‘Christmas Crackers’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] Standing near Del is Earl, another three-piece suit.
1986		C. Stroud Close Pursuit (1988) 138: You tell me I have to take a call from a pair of college-boy suits from IAD! No fucking way, sir. [Ibid.] 151: I think the guy wishes he’d never so much as waved at one of those three-piece suits from Justice.
1992		Eble Campus Sl. April.
1996		P. Howard The Joy (2015) [ebook] Fuck bosses and career ladders and stress and kissing some suit’s arse every day.
1999		Indep. Rev. 10 July 20: The starchy bunch of suits in charge at British Airways simply can’t get it right.
1999		R.G. Barrett Wind & Monkey (2013) [ebook] [T]wo men in jackets talking to another suit further on the left who had to be cops.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 181/1: suit n. 1 = white-shirt .
2004		Kanye West untitled track on College Dropout [album] 🎵 I don’t listen to the suits behind the desks no more.
2007		L. Redhead Cherry Pie [ebook] The suit, balding and pasty, sat in one of the low chairs.
2008		J. Niven Kill Your Friends (2009) 29: A couple of Frog suits decided it would be cool to have a little convention in the South of France.
2013		D. Whish-Wilson Zero at the Bone [ebook] He struck a suit who’d stared too long, knocked him on his fat arse.
2017		D. Winslow The Force [ebook] The suits had to grin and bear it.
2019		M. Herron Joe Country [ebook] [S]uits’ bodies were easier to find than those of joes.
2020		D. Winslow ‘The Last Ride’ in Broken 317: The suit from Homeland Security took over.
2021		C. Hammer Opal Country 89: ‘Who’s the suit?’.
2023		R. Milward Man-Eating Typewriter 69: I savvied [...] twas a specjalni privilege [...] being dragged in before the Governor and the suits.

4. (US police) a bribe, in 1968 of $100.

1971

G. Astor N.Y. Cops 164: ‘You should meet the captain [...] ‘And make me and yourself look good. Give him a hat.’ The price of hats varies with the state of the economy and in 1968 was supposedly worth $20 while a ‘suit’ sold for $100 and a pack of cigarettes for $5 .