yegg
verbEtymology Origin unknown.
1
Slang To rob.
- The bookmakers were yegged as they left the track in the era of the hand-books.1956, Ian Fleming, chapter 10, in Diamonds Are Forever:
yegg
noun/jɛɡ/
Etymology Origin unknown.
1
Slang A person who breaks open safes; a burglar.
- 1904, Edwin S. Porter (director), Capture of the ‘Yegg’ Bank Burglars
- She was frankly disappointed. For some reason she had expected to discover a burglar of one or another accepted type—either a dashing cracksman in full-blown evening dress, lithe, polished, pantherish, or a common yegg, a red-eyed, unshaven, burly brute in the rags and tatters of a tramp.1914 November, Louis Joseph Vance, “An Outsider […]”, in Munsey’s Magazine, volume LIII, number II, New York, N.Y.: The Frank A[ndrew] Munsey Company, […], published 1915, →OCLC, chapter III (Accessory After the Fact), page 382, column 2:
1 more example
- ‘These racketeers are a new type. We think about them the way we think about old time yeggs or needled-up punks.’1940, Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely, Penguin, published 2010, page 265:
- Synonyms
- safecracker, yeggman