stool pigeon
6
8.9
- noun
- /ˈstuːl ˈpɪdʒən/
- Offensive
- Professional stool pigeon clipped me for 50 bucks.
Examples
-
In the world of organized crime, being labeled a stool pigeon means you're considered a traitor for cooperating with law enforcement.
-
That lawyer, Keats, he's nothing but a police stool pigeon.
-
The men hate a stool pigeon.
-
So, I can't be a stool pigeon.
-
Just 'cause I was mixed up with a stool pigeon don't mean I'm one, too.
-
I ain't a stool pigeon, Murph.
-
Smitty: I always knew there was plenty of copper in you, you big, flatfooted stool pigeon.
-
The criminal was captured because he had a stool pigeon who informed the police about his activities.
-
When he testified against his former associates, they called him a stool pigeon for betraying their trust.
Synonyms
596
2.9
A person who secretly collects information for a government or company
168
5.6
A person who secretly gives information to police, journalists, or researchers
96
7.5
A person who secretly tells the police about someone else's bad actions
92
8.2
A person who secretly works inside an organization to pass information to an enemy
27
4.1
A person who works secretly for the police to gather information while hiding who they are
14
6.1
A person who secretly tells adults or police about things other people do wrong
6
9.2
A person who gives information about others to the police, betraying them
4
9.9
A person who secretly gives information to the police, often from inside a group
1
9.9
A person who gives the police secret information about criminals
1
8.7
A person who secretly tells the police about other people's crimes
1
9.9
A person who secretly tells the police about criminals
A person who follows someone secretly and tells others what they do
How Negative
Surface Forms
Morphology
stool + pigeon
The literal constituents ('stool' as a seat or obscurely a decoy and 'pigeon' as a bird) do not transparently yield the sense 'informer'; the idiomatic meaning comes from a historical practice of using a decoy bird and is not inferable from the parts by a typical B1 learner. Even if a learner knew a rare decoy-related sense of 'stool', the shift to ‘secret informant’ is culturally/historically specific and unpredictable.
Etymology
One popular story says stool pigeon was later used for a human informer because, like a fake pigeon that lures other birds, a person who secretly helps the police can lead to trouble for others, so the phrase came to mean 'an informer'.