To stiff someone

'To stiff someone', as in to not pay his bill, I believe came from the funeral industry. It may have derived from an executor's refusal to pay a dry cleaning bill for a burial suit (a suit previously left at the cleaner's by the deceased?), whether tendered by the undertaker or by the dry cleaner, I don't remember... obviously, my memory is unclear on the specifics.

www.etymonline.com says of stiff:
"fail to tip," 1939, originally among restaurant and hotel workers, probably from stiff (n.) in slang sense of "corpse" (corpses don't tip well, either). Extended by 1950 to "cheat."

The idea that the undertaker would have the job of picking up the dry cleaning or that the mourner would quibble over a few dollars on a very large bill both seem unlikely.

I'm not sure anyone is going to figure out any time soon how "stiffing the waiter" came into the language. The first time I heard the expression I immediately thought of a football runner who stiff-arms those trying to tackle him. Obviously others have thought the same. See, in our archive,

www.phrases.org.uk bulletin_board 26 messages 390.html

But so far this hasn't risen above the category of "folk etymology."
SS