Buzz
Pigeons are hardly known for their vocal habits. They tend to perch on window sills and park statues rather than lounging on ottomans, which makes us think that the term stool pigeon likely wasn’t intended to be taken literally.
In fact, various sources (including the Online Etymology Dictionary) suggest that the phrase likely originated from the Old French word estale, dating back to the 1400s, which referred to a decoy bird (often a pigeon) used to lure birds of prey into a trap. When the term crossed into English, the initial e was dropped, and stale came to describe someone or something used to lure another person into a trap. (William Shakespeare mentioned the use of such decoy tactics in his play The Tempest: “The trumpery in my house, go bring it hither for stale to catch these thieves.”)
The expression stool pigeon emerged in the early 1800s, with Noah Webster associating it with a pigeon hunting method where a pigeon was tied to a moving stool to cause it to flutter, drawing in more pigeons for easy capture. Though the phrase initially had animal-related meanings, it later became more commonly associated with people who infiltrated criminal organizations and then reported back to authorities to gain favor with the police. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term began being used in this way in the 1840s.
Many etymologists argue that the connection between the phrase and an actual physical stool pigeon is a misguided interpretation, especially considering that mentions of the hunting technique are exceedingly rare, while references to it as a person are quite prevalent.
