put-up job

Idioms and Phrases

A prearranged conspiracy, especially a crime such as a burglary. For example, The police suspected that the butler was in on it—it was a put-up job . This colloquial phrase was first recorded in 1810.

Example Sentences

The routine was that a husband would be “caught” in a compromising position with some woman, either his actual girlfriend or a woman who’d been paid to go along with the put-up job.

From Los Angeles Times

Texas, for instance, breezily dismissed Cox’s claim as a put-up job, suggesting she could simply terminate her pregnancy in sunny Florida, and described the tragic diagnosis of trisomy 18 as something no different from what happens to “the countless women who give birth every day.”

From Slate

I don’t trust Russia, which invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, and so I immediately guessed that each of these cases was some sort of anti-American put-up job.

From Washington Post

They say that no Indigenous people reside there now, and maybe never did, and that the reserve is a put-up job by outside interests, most likely foreign environmentalists or even, somewhat illogically, the opposite: a gold-mining company with plans for an open-pit quarry.

From New York Times

“This is not quite a put-up job, but nonetheless has been cobbled together so that Ghislaine is made to face the charges that Epstein never faced,’’ Ian Maxwell said.

From Seattle Times

Related Words

• action
• conspiracy
• game plan
• ploy
• practice
• scenario