A robbery, especially at gunpoint, where someone is ordered to put their hands up.
From the phrase 'stick 'em up' or 'stick your hands up', which was the command robbers would shout. The compound word emerged in American English in the late 1800s from this criminal slang.
A stickup got its name from the actual command criminals yelled—'Stick 'em up!'—and the phrase became so associated with robbery that it solidified into a single word describing the crime itself.
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