a collection of portraits of criminals and suspects maintained by the police for purposes of identification.
Origin
1855-60
Examples from the web for rogues' gallery
Behind him stretches a rogues' gallery of picturesque upper-crust scoundrels.
British Dictionary definitions for rogues' gallery
rogues' gallery
noun
1.
a collection of photographs of known criminals kept by the police for identification purposes
2.
a group of undesirable people
Slang definitions & phrases for rogues' gallery
rogues' gallery
noun phrase
A police collection of photographs of criminals; mug shot
Any group or collection of unsavory persons; den of thieves: The new building commission is a plain rogues' gallery(1859+)
Idioms and Phrases with rogues' gallery
rogues' gallery
A police collection of pictures of criminals and suspects kept for identification purposes. For example, The detective went through the entire rogues' gallery but couldn't find a match with the suspect. [ Mid-1800s ]