Mugshot

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A photograph taken typically by law enforcement to record the appearance of a person who has been arrested, often showing the face from the front and side views
2. An official image captured for identification purposes following an individual's detention, usually comprising standardized frontal and profile shots
3. A picture used by police as a record of a suspect’s facial features, generally including straight-on and side angle photographs for future reference

Etymology: The "mug" in "mugshot" is an old slang word for the face, a sense that goes back to the 18th century and was used loosely for a person's features or expression. Paired with "shot", meaning a snapshot or photograph, it gave a blunt, slightly brutal name for a camera portrait taken at the police station. The compound first appears around 1899, when photography had already become cheap enough for police forces to use routinely for recording those they arrested. The point of the picture was to keep a visual record that could be compared against later arrests, which is why these images were usually taken straight-on and in profile. The word is simply a compound of the two plain English nouns, so its history is mostly a matter of how the pieces were combined rather than any borrowing from another language.

Synonyms: booking photo, police photo, identification photo