Green’s Dictionary of Slang

pad v.2

[one ‘pads’ or fills the brain with information]

1. (US black) to inform, to tell.

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[US]L. Durst Jives of Dr. Hepcat (1989) 2: Baby you got to elucidate, I don’t know the happenings, all at once, mop! I get the ‘ice berg act.’ So if you just pad my knowledge box I can make everything alreet.

2. (US police/und.) to put [on a payroll] a no-show employee.

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[US]Helfand Report 101: The defendant known as ‘Mr. T.’ was another phantom employee on the Brooklyn piers. He received pay for work he never performed, i. e. the payroll padding racket.

3. (US police/und.) to add to the quantity of narcotics found on an arrested person in order to upgrade an arrest.

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[US]Knapp Commission Report Dec. 103: Narcotics retained from prior arrests are also used for ‘padding,’ that is, for adding to the quantity of narcotics found on a subsequently arrested person, thus enabling the arresting officer to upgrade the charge to a felony.

SE in slang uses

In phrases

pad (a bill) (v.)

fraudulently to add items to a bill or to an expense account statement in order to obtain money that one is not actually owed.

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[US]A. Train Prisoner at the Bar 212: Mayhap there is upon the jury some tradesman who has ‘padded’ his own credit statement.
[US]Howsley Argot: Dict. of Und. Sl.
[US]C. Stoker Thicker ’n Thieves 142: ‘Robinson is padding expense accounts and playing the proceeds on the races’.
[US]M. Braly On the Yard (2002) 244: He threw the requisition over to where Chilly could reach it. ‘How much did you pad it this month?’.