unboiled lobster

English

Etymology

From the red coats they used to wear.

Noun

unboiled lobster (plural unboiled lobsters)

1. (obsolete, slang) A police officer.

   Synonym: raw lobster

   • 1864, William Russell, Autobiography of a London Detective, page 52:

     Unfortunately, the police have got your address. I didn't tell the unboiled lobster that, though born in England, your mother was a French woman — a Saint Aubin.

References

• John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary