gallows bird

• gallows-bird, gallowsbird

From gallows +‎ bird. Compare virtually identical German construction Galgenvogel (literally “gallows-fowl" or "gallows-bird”), and French construction gibier de potence, as well as similar English jailbird.

gallows bird (plural gallows birds)

1. (archaic) A person who deserves, or is likely, to be hanged.

   Synonyms: hangdog, wag-halter; see also Thesaurus:gallows bird

   • 1943, Esther Hoskins Forbes, Johnny Tremain:

     Everybody along Long Wharf knows you called him a gallows bird. He's not used to it.

   • 2012, Sebastian Brant, The Ship of Fools:

     The story of the man who bit off his father's nose for rearing him as a gallows bird is as old as Aesop, but no known source before Brant mentions the son's name.

   • 2015, Paul Steinberg, Speak You Also: A Holocaust Memoir:

     Before me stood not Philippe but a gallows bird no respectable citizen would want to meet up with on a lonely road.

• jailbird

• gallows-bird, Slang and Its Analogues Past and Present: Fla to Hyps, William Ernest Henley, p. 106
• gallows-bird, Cassell’s dictionary of slang, Jonathon Green, p. 563