slang. [Of doubtful origin.]
1. trans. To steal, filch, run away with.
1825. T. Hook, Sayings, Ser. II. Man of Many Friends, I. 320. Some cold cream, which she had smugged from Mrs. Abberly.
1834. R. H. Froude, Rem. (1838), I. 386. I have had a horse, which I have been cool enough to smug from the Bishop’s stables in his absence.
1851. Mayhew, Lond. Labour, I. 421/1. After that he used to go ‘smugging’ [running away with] other people’s things.
2. intr. To copy surreptitiously; to crib.
a. 1860. Alb. Smith, Med. Stud. (1861), 54. Copying out their notes in little, that they may smug from them when locked up in the examination room.
3. trans. To hush up (a matter).
1857. Morning Chron., 3 Oct., 8/3. She wanted, however, a guarantee that the case should be ‘smugged,’ or, in other words, compromised.
4. To arrest, put in prison.
1896. A. Morrison, Child of the Jago, 247. His father had been smugged.
Hence Smugging vbl. sb.2 (See quots.)
1825. Hone, Every-day Bk., I. 253. When any game was out,… it was lawful to steal the thing played with; this was called smugging.
1861. Mayhew, Lond. Labour, III. 58. Landlord (collaring the bell). Smuggings! pursession is nine points of the law!
1864. Slang Dict., 237. Smuggings,… shouted out by boys, when snatching the tops, or small play property, of other lads.
