Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also lay) to give, e.g. money, drugs.

1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 1 Aug. 9/1: Mr. Thornton’s performance [...] is quite inimitable. You can believe this. Though, having a heart about the size of a bank-clerk’s lunch, we have acquired somewhat a reputation for ‘laying on the raspberry.’.
1938		D. Runyon ‘A Very Honorable Guy’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 418: She says she will give me the wind if I do not lay something on the line.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 4: Old Lady Fortune sure laid it on me when she handed me that tinny old sax.
1959		W. Burroughs Naked Lunch (1968) 182: Laid ten pieces of H on her.
1961		Rigney & Smith Real Bohemia xv: lay on, to to give a gift.
1966		H.S. Thompson Hell’s Angels (1967) 61: Then I pick up a couple of guys, lay a few bucks on ’em for the help, then we go out to see the punk.
1975		D. Goines Inner City Hoodlum 35: A means of laying some money on his parents.
1981		J. Ellroy Brown’s Requiem 192: Tell him Fritz Brown said for him to lay a grand on you.
1994		N. McCall Makes Me Wanna Holler (1995) 144: He was going to lay some heavy time on me.
2000		N. Griffiths Grits 343: Now if a laid oner these [i.e. a depressant] on yew, yurd be flat out in twenty minutes.
2011		J.J. DeCeglie Drawing Dead [ebook] The first wad her old man had laid on me I gave mostly to her.

2. to tell, to impose facts upon.

1884		J. Harrison ‘Negro English’ in Anglia VII 273: To lay sump’n’ on somebody = to accuse some one.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 29 Aug. 12/4: Harry Levien, M.L.A., [...] is now haunted in his business and his leisure hours by hair-lipped and fur-capped chents, who request (confidentially) to be ‘laid on.’ ‘If it’s as big as you pitch it is, Harry,’ said Boss-eyed Melchisedech, ‘you can bet the fust lot ain’t cleared out half the stuff.’.
1903		J. Furphy Such is Life 35: It is a good idea. [...] I’m glad you laid me on to it.
1923		H.C. Witwer Fighting Blood 228: He claims he feels more or less responsible for me going to the cleaners, as his son laid me on the horse.
1937		Advocate (Burnie, Tas.) 28 Oct. 6/5: Horton said, ‘You have been laid on to this,’ and Stokes said, ‘Yes, who potted us?’.
1940		Louis Jordan ‘You Run Your Mouth and I’ll Run My Business’ 🎵 But dig this spiel I’m going to lay on you, gate, / Don’t cop your broom, park the body and wait.
1953		D. Wallop Night Light 200: Laying a story on me.
1958		W. Motley Let No Man Write My Epitaph (1960) 248: I’m the lead man. I lay on the jive and Billy fills his pockets.
1961		T. Ronan Only a Short Walk 28: I heard down town that Shanghai Pete is opening up again [...] I ought to lay Brownie on to that.
1972		G.V. Higgins Friends of Eddie Coyle 30: Let me lay it right on you [...] I don’t honestly know any more.
1986		F. Taylor Auf Wiedersehen Pet Two 97: ‘Oh, don’t lay that on us!’ Oz protested.
1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 195: What kind of note you layin on me? What’s the game?
2000		T. Blacker Kill Your Darlings 281: What kind of scumbag woud I be to lay the guilt on her?
2017		D. Jenkins Stick a Fork In Me 128: ‘Let me lay some facts on you about those men’ .

3. (Aus.) to assail.

1902

Bulletin (Sydney) 2 Aug. 16/2: He is dogged and waylaid and variously persecuted at every turn; and while innocently boiling his billy under a gumtree he is suddenly surprised by a rush of bobbies, ‘laid on’ by idiotic residents, who cover him with guns and roar at him to ‘bail up.’.

4. (Aus und.) to provide a victim for a thief or confidence trickster.

1908

Truth (Brisbane) 12 Apr. 9/3: But the wust of all them pushers / Are the kinchin buttoners / Who goes trailin round the streets / [...] / For to lay the magsman on, or / Burrow out a easey mug.

5. (US) to blame.

1975

E. Torres Carlito’s Way 16: [H]e [i.e. a policeman] wasn’t no flake artist. He let me walk away from one that wasn’t my doing even though he could have laid it on me.