gallows bird

American  

noun

Informal.

1. a person who deserves to be hanged.

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gallows bird British  

noun

1. informal a person considered deserving of hanging

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Etymology

Origin of gallows bird

First recorded in 1775–85

Example Sentences

‘And take Merchant Lyte. Everybody along Long Wharf knows you called him a gallows bird. He’s not used to it.’

From Literature

‘Away with you, you gallows birds,’ they were saying.

From Project Gutenberg

He who helped the bishop but," he added, with a rather sinister roll of the eye, "was surely none other than that gallows bird, Morten the cook.

From Project Gutenberg

And it really did not require this certificate to convince most of his visitors, that, like many of the trading consuls of the Levant, he was somewhat of a gallows bird.

From Project Gutenberg

“And I hear you been saying I was a gallows bird?”

From Project Gutenberg