pigeon

• pijon (internet slang, deliberate misspelling)

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /ˈpɪ.dʒɪn/, /ˈpɪ.dʒən/
• (New Zealand) IPA^(key): /ˈpə.dʒən/
• (Indic) IPA^(key): /ˈpiː.dʒan/, /ˈpiː.dʒi.jan/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪdʒən, -ɪdʒɪn, (Indic) -iːdʒən
• Hyphenation: pi‧geon
• Homophone: pidgin

Inherited from Middle English pygeoun, borrowed from Old French pyjon, inherited from Late Latin pīpiōnem (“chirping bird”), derived from Latin pīpiāre (“to chirp”), of imitative origin. Partly displaced native English dove.

• pidgeon (archaic)

pigeon (countable and uncountable, plural pigeons)

2. One of several birds of the family Columbidae within the order Columbiformes.

   Synonyms: columbid, culver, dove

3. (uncountable) The meat from this bird.
4. (Canada, US, informal) A person who is a target or victim of a confidence game.

   Synonyms: dupe, fish, sucker; see also Thesaurus:dupe

5. (countable, politics) A pacifist, appeaser, an isolationist, a dove.
6. A person hired to transport film footage out of a region where transport options are limited.
   • 1989, Whitman Bassow, The Moscow Correspondents, page 214:

     Kalb rushed to the airport and found a "pigeon" to take out the film: an American woman headed for London.

   • 2021, Hilary Brown, War Tourist: Memoirs of a Foreign Correspondent:

     At this point, all the commercial airports in Pakistan were closed. The only way to get film out was over land. John promptly hired me to be what was then known in the business as a "Pigeon," and installed me in a comfortable room in his hotel. […] I would then hand-carry his film out of the country, via Peshawar, the Khyber Pass, through the Kabul Gorge, and up to Kabul, Afghanistan, where I would meet a BBC courier and transfer the film bag.

7. (Australia, military slang) A weak or useless person.

pigeon (third-person singular simple present pigeons, present participle pigeoning, simple past and past participle pigeoned)

1. (transitive) To deceive with a confidence game.

• dove
• pidgin
• piper
• squab
• squeaker

From pidgin English, from a Chinese Pidgin English pronunciation of English business during trade in the Far East. See pidgin.

pigeon (countable and uncountable, plural pigeons)

1. (archaic, idiomatic, UK, informal) Concern or responsibility.

   It's their pigeon.

• [John Camden Hotten] (1859) “PIGEON”, in A Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words, […], London: John Camden Hotten, […], →OCLC.

• “pigeon”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “pigeon”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.

Inherited from Old French pyjon, from Late Latin pīpiōnem (“chirping bird”), from Latin pīpiāre (“to chirp”).

• IPA^(key): /pi.ʒɔ̃/

• Audio:

  (file)

pigeon m (plural pigeons, feminine pigeonne)

1. pigeon

   Synonyms: colombe, columbidé

2. (colloquial) patsy (an easily trickable, naive person)

   Synonym: lampiste

• “pigeon”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• poigne

Inherited from Old French pyjon, from Late Latin pīpiōnem (“chirping bird”), from Latin pīpiāre (“to chirp”).

pigeon m (plural pigeons)

1. (Jersey) pigeon