mug book
5
7.8
- noun
- /mʌɡ bʊk/
- Jargon
- I don't know, the face is vaguely familiar, like, I don't know, maybe I saw it in a mug book or something, but I...
- look at mug book
Examples
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A mug book.
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We wish we could persuade her to look at the mug books.
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After reviewing police mug books.
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I spent the morning going through the mug book like I know what I'm looking for.
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In fact, the sooner she looks at the mug books the better chance she has of recalling one or two of the faces.
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We'd like you to come downtown, take a look at the mug books, see if you can make a positive I.D. on the man you saw.
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They think they could've gotten the apartment number off the address on the grocery bags but they haven't been able to pick the faces out of the mug book.
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The detective asked the witness to look through a mug book to find the suspect's photograph.
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In order to identify the robber, the officer showed the victim a mug book filled with pictures of known criminals.
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After the crime, they used a mug book to check if the perpetrator had any previous arrests.
Synonyms
1
8.1
A set of police photos of arrested people used to identify suspects
1
8.8
A collection of police photos of known criminals used to identify suspects
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is partly derivable: combining 'mug' (face) with 'book' (a collection) leads naturally to the idea of a book of faces or photographs. However, 'mug' as slang for criminal photographs and the police-specific use (a book for identifying criminals) is culturally and register-specific, so the full, specialized sense is not fully predictable to a B1 learner without prior exposure.
Etymology
Mug book comes from police keeping a book full of mug photos because 'mug' was a slang word for 'face'. They used the book so witnesses could 'identify' suspects, so today mug book means a police collection of criminals' photos.