stick on

English

Verb

stick on (third-person singular simple present sticks someone on, present participle sticking someone on, simple past and past participle stuck someone on)

1. (transitive, UK, law enforcement, slang) To charge (someone) with an offence.
   • 1931, The Police Journal, volume 4, page 501:

     […] took him to the nick, stuck him on, and he spent the night in the flowery.

   • 1995, Verbatim, volume 22, number 3, page 13:

     You can be stuck on for anything from serious misconduct to minor infringements of the police's absurdly draconian and catch-all disciplinary codes, which make it possible for a senior officer with a grudge against a junior to stick him on for almost anything. For example, the PC may have been caught slipping unobtrusively into a restaurant or pub on his ground to scrounge […] a drink or a meal.

   • quoted in 2005, Mike McConville, Dan Shepherd, Watching Police, Watching Communities (page 200)

     But because you're under pressure for numbers and it looks good on your report that you done x number of processes, you can't come in and say 'Well, I didn't stick him on because I felt that it was a better result just to tell him off.'

Anagrams

• tonicks, stockin'