bertillonage

alternative Bertillonage

1. historicaluncountableAn early form of biometric identification used on criminals, usually by the French police, making use of distinguishing anthropometric measurements, such as head size, arm span and scars.
2. broadlyuncountableA similar form of identification of used on racing greyhounds.

   1 more example

   Often these [clothing] labels are of more use than the so-called bertillonage, those eleven items of physical measurement and characteristics that must be recorded to make a positive identification but that are useless for anything else and find themselves at the bottom of desk drawers or in unused databases.

   2005, Péter Nádas, translated by Imre Goldstein, Parallel Stories

1. alternativeuncountableAlternative form of bertillonage.

   There was a risk that he might slip away, so before releasing him, Agent Burger made sure that Morrison had gone through a rigorous process known as Bertillonage. Devised by the French criminologist Alphonse Bertillon in 1879, it was the first scientific method for identifying repeat criminals.

   2021 (originally published 2017, adapted 2021), David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon: Adapted for Younger Readers, page 110