Green’s Dictionary of Slang

cuff v.2

[NB OED 2 edn offers two cits. for cuff = to handcuff: 1693, 1851, but neither are listed as sl. and the term is ‘rare’]

1. to handcuff; also as phr. put the cuff on.

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[Aus] (ref. to early 19C) ‘Price Warung’ Tales of the Early Days 144: On the voyage from Sydney [they] had been flogged, cuffed, ‘spread-eagled,’ celled together.
[Can]R. Service ‘The Man from Eldorado’ in Ballads of a Cheechako 44: I am humbled indeed, for I’m ‘cuffed’ to a Swede that thinks he’s a millionaire.
[US]Ersine Und. and Prison Sl.
R. Starnes And When She Was Bad She Was Murdered 189: Why don’t we wake up Moon and have him put the cuff on whoever it is?
[US]M. Braly Felony Tank (1962) 10: Huey reached over into the back seat and cuffed him.
[UK]T. Parker Frying-Pan 34: The day they brought me here, cuffed-up between a couple of screws in a private hire-car.
[UK]J. Campbell Gate Fever 95: Remember I’m still cuffed to two officers.
[Aus]L. Davies Candy 155: ‘Cuff him,’ he said. I walked handcuffed and flanked through Bourke Street Mall to the paddy wagon.
[US](con. 1964–8) J. Ellroy Cold Six Thousand 156: They dumped him in a sweat room. They cuffed him to a chair. Two dicks worked on him.
[Aus]P. Temple Truth 319: Hanlon [...] put his hands behind his back. Weber cuffed him and told him his rights.
[US]Codella and Bennett Alphaville (2011) 127: With all five perps cuffed up, and a van on the way [etc.].
[US]J. Hannaham Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit 17: Carlotta pushed her paws through the bean slot and let the COs cuff her.

2. (US campus) to initiate or pursue a relationship.

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[US]C. Eble (ed.) UNC-CH Campus Sl. Spring 2014 3: CUFF — form a relationship: ‘It’s cuffing season. Can we spend some time together?’.
Kash Doll ‘For Everybody’ 🎵 Cuffing is dead / You heard what I said, bitch cuffing is dead.

In derivatives

In phrases

cuff up (v.)

(US prison) to extend one’s wrists so as to be handcuffed, esp. as an order.

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[US]P. Earley Hot House 163: When they stopped at the cell of a former Lompoc prisoner, Watkins yelled, ‘Cuff up!’ ‘Fuck you!’ the Cuban replied. [...] When Watkins came to the thirteenth cell and gave the order ‘Cuff up,’ the detainee stepped forward and stuck out his wrists.