A habitual criminal or person who has spent much time in prison; a prisoner.
Compound of 'gaol' plus 'bird,' using 'bird' as slang for a person (as in modern 'bird' meaning a person). First recorded in the 19th century, reflecting the era's colorful criminal slang.
Victorian criminals created rich slang vocabularies for themselves—'gaolbird' was part of a whole coded language that let them communicate identity and status within the criminal underworld.
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