as in informant
a person who provides information about another's wrongdoing
the FBI finally got a break when one of the mob boss's top henchmen turned stool pigeon
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Recent Examples of stool pigeon
Once an unconscious stool pigeon, always an unconscious stool pigeon.
—
Howie Carr, Boston Herald, 12 Nov. 2025
Russo turned stool pigeon within a month of his November 2017 arrest for selling a kilo of cocaine to an undercover agent.
—John Annese, New York Daily News, 26 Feb. 2025
They are barred from using certain language during debates including git, guttersnipe, swine and stool pigeon.
—Max Colchester, WSJ, 3 Jan. 2019
Howie Carr, Boston Herald, 12 Nov. 2025
Russo turned stool pigeon within a month of his November 2017 arrest for selling a kilo of cocaine to an undercover agent.
—John Annese, New York Daily News, 26 Feb. 2025
They are barred from using certain language during debates including git, guttersnipe, swine and stool pigeon.
—Max Colchester, WSJ, 3 Jan. 2019
Recent Examples of Synonyms for stool pigeon
Noun
-
Takeshi Ebisawa poses with a rocket launcher during a meeting with an informant and two undercover Danish police officers at a warehouse in Copenhagen, Denmark February 3, 2021, in a photograph from a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) criminal complaint.—
CBS News,
CBS News,
4 Mar. 2026
-
Jailhouse informant pointed to Puckett The events that led to his death began the evening of March 12, 1998 — not March 13, as originally presented at trial.—
Theresa Clift,
Sacbee.com,
4 Mar. 2026
Noun
-
And so every regime invests in having student informers.—
Anne Applebaum,
The Atlantic,
23 Jan. 2026
-
The whole family is deeply involved in the revolutionary movement: the oldest son disappears into Siberia, never to be seen or heard of again, while the youngest, eighteen, is jailed together with his father, and executed after his cell is exposed by an informer.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
22 Jan. 2026
Noun
-
The proverbial canaries in coal mines will then cause a recession.—
Jim Cramer,
CNBC,
1 Mar. 2026
-
By crunching data from millions of monthly payroll records for workers in jobs with exposure to generative AI, the authors concluded that workers ages 22 to 25—the canaries—have seen about a 13 percent decline in employment since late 2022.—
Josh Tyrangiel,
The Atlantic,
10 Feb. 2026
Noun
-
For at least two years in the late 1940s, the building, then owned by a predecessor bank of Credit Suisse, housed a key stop on the secret routes that allowed Nazi officials to escape justice and flee to South America, known as rat lines.—
Hugo Miller,
Bloomberg,
10 Mar. 2026
-
Tests on rats and sheep show injuries consistent with those seen in humans with Havana Syndrome.—
Mirella Brussani,
CBS News,
8 Mar. 2026
Noun
-
Zachary Schermele is a congressional reporter for USA TODAY.—
Zachary Schermele,
USA Today,
5 Mar. 2026
-
Todd Keller told reporters from news outlets Arizona's Family and Fox-10.—
Arkansas Online,
Arkansas Online,
5 Mar. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Stool pigeon.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/stool%20pigeon. Accessed 11 Mar. 2026.
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