English

Noun

rogues' gallery ‎(plural rogues' galleries)

1. A set of pictures of convicted or suspected criminals used in law enforcement investigations to help witnesses identify suspects.
   • 1866, "Readings for the Young: The Rogues' Gallery," in The Christian Treasury, Johnstone, Hunter & Co. (Edinburgh), pp. 322-323:

     When the policemen arrest a man . . . if there is good reason to suspect him, they take his picture before they let him go. . . . Then they put the picture up in the rogues' gallery among the others, where everybody who comes there can see it.

   • 1984, William Diehl, Hooligans, ISBN 9780345312013, p. 41

     "Recognize these people?" Dutch asked, pointing to the rogues' gallery.

     I nodded. "All of 'em. Cutthroats to the man."

2. (idiomatic, by extension) A group of lawbreakers or other disreputable characters.
   • 1997, Rohinton Mistry, Such a Long Journey, ISBN 9780771060571, p. 325:

     The old staple of every demonstration: gully gully may shor hai, Congress Party chor hai—the cry goes up in every alley, Congress Party is a 'rogues' gallery—was very much in evidence.

   • 2006, "The Man Who Sold the Bomb," Time, 6 Feb.:

     For more than a decade, Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, masterminded a vast, clandestine and hugely profitable enterprise whose mission boiled down to this: selling to a rogues' gallery of nations the technology and equipment to make nuclear weapons.

References

• rogues gallery at OneLook Dictionary Search