verb (American).—To get a grip on; to ‘corner’; to put the screw on; also, in the passive sense, to come out on the wrong side in speculations. [From the Spanish cincha, a belt or girdle; cinchar, to girdle. Properly used of the saddling of horses with the huge Mexican saddle. To CINCH a horse, however, is by no means the same as girthing him. The two ends of the tough cordage which constitute the CINCH terminate in long narrow strips of leather called latigos—thongs—which connect the CINCHES with the saddle, and are run through an iron ring and then tied by a series of complicated turns and knots known only to the craft.]
1875. S. WILLIAMS, The City of the Golden Gate, in Scribner’s Monthly, x. July, 277. A man who is hurt in a mining transaction is ‘CINCHED.’
1881. New York Times, Dec. 18, quoted in Notes and Queries, 6 S., v. 65. CINCH. To subdue, to forcibly bind down and overcome. Thus it is unfairly said that the Northern Pacific Company intends to CINCH the settlers by exacting large prices for its lands. Query, from Latin cingere.
1888. Chicago Daily Inter Ocean, 2 Feb. Black and Blue thinks the Dwyers have a CINCH on both the great events.
1888. New York World, 22 July. The bettor, of whom the pool-room bookmaker stands in dread, however, is the racehorse owner, who has a CINCH bottled up for a particular race, and drops into the room an hour or two before the races begin.
