🪖 A new recruit 🚔 A prisoner

yardbird

1 9.9

A new recruit who does chores around the barracks

noun
/ˈjɑrdˌbɜrd/

Archaic

: recluta

Many yardbirds hoped for a quick promotion to escape the endless chores.

Examples

As a yardbird, she learned the importance of discipline and attention to detail.
The new yardbird was given cleaning duties.
The new yardbird spent his first week cleaning floors and painting fences.
Many yardbirds complain about their assignments.
The sergeant shouted at the yardbird to clean the barracks before inspection.
Every yardbird in the unit was given menial tasks to keep the yard in order.
As a yardbird, he spent his days doing basic chores instead of combat training.

Synonyms

grunt

vsyardbird

Offensive

41 7.0

A low-level soldier or worker who does basic routine tasks

is specifically a recruit given menial duties around barracks rather than any low-ranking soldier

yard bird

vsyardbird

Offensive

9.9

A new soldier who does only boring chores as punishment

is the single word US military slang form for the same idea

How Menial

drudge

7 8.1

yardbird

Archaic

1 9.9

recruit

149 3.6

soldier

∞ 1.1

officer

∞ 2.4

Surface Forms

yardbird singular

yardbirds plural

Morphology

yardbird = yard + bird (opaque) = yard + bird

This is a compound of 'yard' and 'bird', but the military slang sense 'a recruit assigned menial or routine tasks' is not directly predictable from the literal meanings of the parts.

Etymology

Yardbird in U.S. military slang likely uses the same idea: a recruit working in the barracks yard, doing basic chores like a bird pecking around. So yardbird can mean 'a junior soldier given simple or routine chores'.