Verb (old).—1. To steal; specifically to pick a pocket by inserting the middle and forefinger. Also to put one’s forks down: Fr., vol à la fourchette.
1690. B. E., Dict. of the Canting Crew. Let’s fork him, c. Let us pick that man’s pocket, the newest and most dextrous way; it is to thrust the fingers straight, stiff, open, and very quick into the pocket, and so closing them hook what can be held between them.
1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. Let us fork him.
1830. Lytton, Paul Clifford, ch. xvi. Yet so keen was his appetite for the sport, that the veteran appropriator absolutely burst into tears at not having ‘forked more.’
1878. C. Hindley, Life and Times of James Catnach. Frisk the Cly and fork the Rag, Draw the fogies plummy.
2. (venery).—To open up, or spread (q.v.).
To fork out, or over (sometimes abbreviated to fork). Verb. phr. (common).—To hand over; to pay; to shell out (q.v.).
1830. Lytton, Paul Clifford, ch. xxxi. The person fork him out ten shiners.
1836. Dickens, Sketches by Boz, p. 84. His active mind at once perceived how much might be done in the way of … shoving the old and helpless into the wrong buss, and carrying them off … till they was rig’larly done over, and forked out the stumpy.
1837. Barham, I. L., The Execution. He Pulls up at the door of a gin-shop, and gaily Cries, ‘What must I fork out to night, my trump, For the whole first-floor of the Magpie and Stump?’