Green’s Dictionary of Slang

to tap a telephone or to install any form of electronic surveillance; thus bugged adj.

1919		M. Acklom in Bookman Apr. 209/1: Differentiate a door-rapper from a cleaner, and state, with adequate reasons, which would be the more likely (a) to ding for a lump, (b) to be a ring-up for a holster (omitting in the latter case the possibilities of the joint being bugged) .
1928		C. Panzram Journal of Murder in Gaddis & Long (2002) 116: To pull off a hot prowl is to turn off a trick in a private or a joint that is to be kipped or bugged; that is to rob a place where people are sleeping or that is wired.
1930		D. Ahearn How to Commit a Murder 52: The joint is bugged – it’s got a burglar alarm.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 36: bugged crib A safe equipped with a burglar alarm. bugged joint A place protected by burglar alarms.
1956		H. Whittington Forgive Me, Killer (2000) 3: I saw the fan was bugged but it didn’t interest me.
1962		S. Longstreet Flesh Peddlers (1964) 240: Don’t call me from King’s Place. I hear it’s bugged, every office wired.
1969		A. Buckeridge Trust Jennings (1989) 145: She may think the school telephone has been bugged.
1972		P. Fordham Inside the Und. 82: The persecution mania [...] that most of their telephone lines are bugged.
1988		D. Woodrell Muscle for the Wing 89: I hope to god the FBI ain’t buggin’ this house.
1990		(con. early 1950s) J. Ellroy L.A. Confidential 450: Davey had your cell bugged.
1999		Guardian G2 28 July 7: I want you to bug X’s phone.
1999		Observer 18 July 33: All Customs investigators needed to do was get written permission to bug.
2000		Observer 23 Jan. 23: Their phones were being bugged by the local chief of police.
2006		B. Matthews Intractable [ebook] The bugged conversation had told us everything we needed to know.
2011		Eve. Standard 7 Apr. 23/1: I secretly taped him. The bugger bugged as it were.
2012		D. Whish-Wilson ‘In Savage Freedom’ in Crime Factory: Hard Labour [ebook] I hadn’t allowed Danny to talk about what he was doing for Warner, either in the car or at his flat. Ogilvie would certainly have bugged the car, perhaps the flat.
2016		Vanity Fair 16 Mar. 🌐 So they [i.e. the police] began to bug their cars. How? ‘Surveillance pixies,’ Johnson said, laughing. ‘Surveillance teams’.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 37: The best bug man on earth is a hebe named Bernie Spindel. He bugged a bungalow at the Miramar Hotel last weel.
2023		R. Milward Man-Eating Typewriter 288: The batatats might bug your latty, but they shall never shush your secrets.