Bird

Although ‘bird’ is current British slang for a girl or woman, it is far from new. It has been used in this sense from at least the 14th century. “Bird’ is also an abbreviation of jailbird, which is American and dates from the late 18th century, although ‘jailbird’ is in fact much older and dates from the early 1600s, from the obvious allusion to a bird trapped inside a cage with bars. Closely related, ‘bird’ is also British slang for time spent in prison, as in ‘to do bird’ which evolved from rhyming slang, bird-lime/time, in the sense of prison time. Bird-lime/time is one of the oldest examples of rhyming slang recorded and dates from 1857. Its ‘clipped’ form, ‘bird’ meaning prison time evolved later in the 19th century. See also Give someone the bird.