stool pigeon
3
8.9
- noun
- /ˈstuːl ˈpɪdʒən/
- Offensive
:
soplón
- Professional stool pigeon clipped me for 50 bucks.
Examples
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In the world of organized crime, being labeled a stool pigeon means you're considered a traitor for cooperating with law enforcement.
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That lawyer, Keats, he's nothing but a police stool pigeon.
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The men hate a stool pigeon.
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So, I can't be a stool pigeon.
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Just 'cause I was mixed up with a stool pigeon don't mean I'm one, too.
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I ain't a stool pigeon, Murph.
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Smitty: I always knew there was plenty of copper in you, you big, flatfooted stool pigeon.
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The criminal was captured because he had a stool pigeon who informed the police about his activities.
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When he testified against his former associates, they called him a stool pigeon for betraying their trust.
Synonyms
623
2.9
A person who secretly collects information for a government or company
165
5.6
A person who secretly gives information to police, journalists, or researchers
83
7.5
A person who secretly tells the police about someone else's bad actions
82
8.2
A person who secretly works inside an organization to pass information to an enemy
75
6.1
A person who secretly tells adults or police about things other people do wrong
18
4.1
A person who works secretly for the police to gather information while hiding who they are
18
9.2
A person who gives information about others to the police, betraying them
3
9.9
A person who gives the police secret information about criminals
3
9.9
A person who secretly gives information to the police, often from inside a group
1
8.7
A person who secretly tells the police about other people's crimes
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'.