to tip so. <> off - jmdn. einen Hinweis geben


LEO search: tip+off

Pons-Collins:
tip off - (vt sep) einen Tipp /or/ Wink geben +dat (about - über +acc);
he tipped off the police as to her whereabouts - er verriet der Polizei, wo sie war (inf);
they've been tipped off - man hat ihnen einen Tipp /or/ Wink gegeben

Oxford-Duden:
tip off - v.t. tip sb. off - jmdm. einen Hinweis /od./ (ugs.) Tipp geben
be tipped off by sb. - einen Hinweis /od./ (ugs.) Tipp von jmdm. erhalten

NOAD:
tip someone off - [informal] give someone information about something, typically in a discreet or confidential way: they were arrested after the police were tipped off by local residents.

Chambers:
tip someone off - to give them a piece of useful or secret information.


Web examples:
• Thanks to ... for tipping me off that Microsoft Press is now selling a beta version of ...
• I really wanted to look at it but, if it was a spammer, did not want to tip them off that my email address was valid
• could have at least tipped readers off that something didn’t smell right
• Subtle color differences of just a few degrees can tip someone off that there is something "fishy" about a person's purported fashionability.
• Since you cannot delete old editions, you’ll need a means of tipping folks off that a newer edition exists. How you do that is by putting a link ...
• one of Miller's anonymous sources tipped her off that the FBI planned to raid an Islamic "charity"
• A smiley face would have tipped us off that it was sarcasm! :-)
• what tipped him off was the way Borat cracked up whenever Haggerty brought up handicapped people.
• talking about a female runner on steroids, she quipped, "What tipped them off was that she forgot to put the toilet seat down."
• She says what tipped her off was, “Long hours on the computer in his office. And when I'd walk in, he'd be switching so I couldn't see what he was doing."
• I guess what tipped them off was a bunch of Pakistanis with blonde hair and dark roots.
• first tipped me off to what was happening online, and how students were using the Net to spread the word to deaf people
• However, it wasn’t their speech that first tipped me off that they weren’t from the United States.
• It was the silence that first tipped him off that something was wrong. Jack should have been there to greet him at the door.

There are probably other possible translations. Someone in a previous thread suggested 'jmdn. auf die richtige Spur bringen,' which also sounded okay to me.

For the record, it's a separable verb, so it can be either 'tip so. off' or 'tip off so.' -- don't know if my angle brackets will show up or not.