murphy v.
1. (US Und.) to swindle by promising some variety of illegal pleasure, usu. sex, then taking the money and failing to deliver the promised ‘goods’.
![]() | Manchild in the Promised Land (1969) 324: I started teaching him the street life. I taught him how to Murphy. | |
![]() | Portable Promised Land (ms.) 67: Eddie Murphy, who often plays a contemporary urban trickster [...] has the good fortune of sharing his last name with traditional English: murphy is a word that means to con. |
2. in a non-criminal sense, to leave without fulfilling a promise.
![]() | I, Fatty 41: He’s murphied out on me. |