put up to

present singular third person puts up to · participle present putting up to

1. ditransitiveidiomaticTo encourage or trick (someone) to perform (an action which is foolish or wrong).

   "I done the other things—Brace he put me up to it, and persuaded me, and promised he'd make me rich, some day, and I done it, and I'm sorry I done it."

   1896, Mark Twain, chapter 11, in Tom Sawyer, Detective

   3 more examples

   "He's goin' to that well there after water." "We ain't dyin' of thirst, are we? That's foolishness." "Well, somebody put him up to it, an' he's doin' it."

   1895, Stephen Crane, A Mystery of Heroism

   This week in London the hero of Mayfair matrons is the next-to-youngest brother of Edward VIII, His Royal Highness Henry, the Duke of Gloucester. . . . Gloucester's young Scottish Duchess put him up to telling the King-Emperor after Mrs. Simpson's departure (TIME, Dec. 14), "You are a damn fool if you run after her now!" For his pains, Gloucester got slapped.

   1936 December 21, “Foreign News: Gloucester”, in Time, retrieved 02 Jul 2015

   [T]hree suspects were brothers, ages 19, 31 and 34, who were caught collecting money squeezed from a victim. The two younger brothers blamed their older sibling, who has been in and out of prison for years, for putting them up to it.

   2008 April 29, Marc Lacey, “'Virtual kidnappings' in Mexico play on very real fears”, in The New York Times, retrieved 02 Jul 2015

   Synonyms: entice, induce, inveigle