bertillonage means an early form of biometric identification used on criminals by the French police, making use of distinguishing anthropometric measurements, such as head size, arm span and scars. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.
Why this word is great
BERTILLONAGE — [Noun] An early, systematic method for identifying criminals based on precise anthropometric measurements and meticulous physical descriptions. Learned borrowing from French bertillonnage, from the surname of its inventor, Alphonse Bertillon (1853–1914), with the French noun-forming suffix -age. Unlike dactyloscopy, which keys to the immutable whorls of a fingertip, or the broad, digital field of biometrics, which automates identification via iris scans or gait recognition, bertillonage is a painstakingly manual precursor—a taxonomy of the body attempted with calipers and ledgers. It is the cold touch of the spreading compass against a skull’s breadth, the clinical cataloguing of a scar’s precise latitude on a forearm, and the stark, full-face and profile photographs that first pinned a human identity to a card—a fragile, bureaucratic faith in the permanence of bone, slowly crumbling under the revelation of the truly unique whorl upon a fingertip.
noun
- An early form of biometric identification used on criminals by the French police, making use of distinguishing anthropometric measurements, such as head size, arm span and scars.
- A similar form of identification of used on racing greyhounds.“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.”