Pigeon

or stool-pigeon, subs. (old).—1.  A dupe; a GULL (q.v.); a FLY (q.v.): cf. ROOK and SPIDER [cf. Thackeray’s title, Captain Rook and Mr. Pigeon]. Hence, as verb. (or TO PLUCK A PIGEON = to swindle). Fr. un pigeon, un dindon, or un tordu; Sp. palamo (= pigeon), or sangrado (= subject for bleeding); It. un spagnuolo.—GROSE (1785); BEE (1823).

  1585.  Les Dialogues de Jacques Tahureau. Je me deffieroy tantost que tu serois un de ceux qui se laissent si facilement PIGEONNER à telles gens.

  1720.  Observer, No. 27. He’s PIGEON’D and undone.

  1749.  SMOLLETT, Gil Blas [ROUTLEDGE (1866), 146]. A flatterer may play what game he likes against the PIGEONS of high life! They let you look over their hand, and then wonder that you beat them.

  1821.  P. EGAN, Life in London, II. i. Always on the look out for a ‘good customer.’ He, however, prefers PIGEONS.

  1831.  B. DISRAELI, The Young Duke, IV. vi. Lord Castlefort was the jackal to these prowling beasts of prey; looked out for PIGEONS, and got up little parties to Richmond or Brighton.

  1871.  Levant Herald, 22 Feb., ‘Gambling Table at Constantinople.’ The police agents … made a sudden razzia.… Catching some of the croupiers, bonnets, and PIGEONS in fragrante delicto.

  1888.  W. E. HENLEY and R. L. STEVENSON, Deacon Brodie, i. 1, 7. Smith. I’ve trapped a PIGEON for you. Brodie. Can’t you PLUCK him yourself?

  1897.  Referee, 14 March, 1, 1. These senators could differentiate between the claimants and debtors who knew the ropes, the hawks who harried PIGEONS, and, generally speaking, the straight and the crooked.

  1901.  Pall Mall Gazette, 13 May, 7, 3. A plaintiff objected to the description of “moneylender,” and explained that he had many other interests besides the lending of money—for instance, he was devoted to birds. “PIGEONS?” asked the judge.

  2.  (old).—See quots. and cf. sense 1.

  1785.  GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v. PIGEONS. Sharpers, who, during the drawing of the lottery, wait ready mounted near Guildhall, and, as soon as the first two or three numbers are drawn, which they receive from a confederate on a card, ride with them full speed to some distant insurance office, before fixed on, where there is another of the gang, commonly a decent-looking woman, who takes care to be at the office before the hour of drawing: to her he secretly gives the number, which she insures for a considerable sum: thus biting the biter.

  1823.  BADCOCK (‘Jon Bee’), Dictionary of the Turf, etc., s.v. PIGEON … ‘To pigeon the news’ is to send information by carrier pigeon. So fellows, who ran or rode with news surreptitiously obtained, received the name of PIGEONS from their occupation.

  3.  See BLUE PIGEON.

  4.  (colonial).—Business: see PIGEON ENGLISH. [The Chinese pronunciation of the English word.]

  PAUL’S PIGEONS, subs. phr. (school).—The scholars of St. Paul’s school.

  1662.  FULLER, Worthies (London), i. 65. St. Anthonie’s Pigs (so were the scholars of that School [City of London] commonly called, as those of St. Paul, PAUL’S PIGEONS). [Fuller refers to STOWE’S Survey as his authority.]

  TO MILK THE PIGEON, verb. phr. (old).—‘To attempt impossibilities, to be put to shifts for want of money.’—GROSE (1785). Cf. PIGEON’S-MILK.

  PHRASES more or less colloquial are:—PIGEON-BREASTED = with protruding breast; PIGEON-HEARTED (or LIVERED) = timid; PIGEON-TOED = with turned-in toes; PIGEON-WING = (1) a late 18th century mode of dressing the side hair: now American, (2) a wig so called, and (3) a brisk step or caper in dancing, skating; TO SHOOT AT A PIGEON AND KILL A CROW = to blunder wilfully; TO CATCH TWO PIGEONS WITH ONE BEAN (see STONE).

  1596.  SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet, ii. 2.

  1621.  FLETCHER, The Pilgrim, iii. 4. I never saw such PIGEON-HEARTED people.

  1749.  SMOLLETT, Gil Blas [ROUTLEDGE], 328. Yet he was not so PIGEON-LIVERED as to surrender without an effort in my favour.

  1836.  W. G. CLARK, The Ollapodiana Papers. One haw-buck dancer—a fellow whom I caught in several vulgar attempts to achieve a PIGEON-WING—came up to me with an impudent air.

  1837.  R. H. BARHAM, The Ingoldsby Legends, ‘The Dead Drummer,’ II. 171.