put the arm on

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Idioms and Phrases

Also, put the bite or touch on . Ask for or demand money, as in He's the youngest and he's always putting the arm on Dad . The first of these slangy usages, first recorded in 1939, alludes to a robber assaulting someone by yoking his arm around the victim's throat. The bite variant, first recorded in 1919, similarly alludes to a violent attack. The last, touch , has been slang for “theft” since the mid-1800s.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

put that in your pipe and smoke it put the blame on

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