usual suspects

English

Etymology

The phrase was commonly used in New York in the 1930s, by both criminals and law enforcement, often with regard to baseless arrests. The phrase was popularized more broadly by its appearance in the 1942 film Casablanca, especially since the 1990s.^[1]

Noun

usual suspects pl (plural only)

1. The people, often scapegoats, routinely arrested in response to a crime.
   • 1942, Murray Burnett, Joan Alison, Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, Howard Koch, Casablanca, spoken by Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains):

     Major Strasser has been shot... round up the usual suspects.

2. (by extension, informal) The people or things that would be routinely expected to appear in a particular context.
   • 2011 May 22, James Howard Kunstler, “Entropy Made Visible”, in Terrain‎:

     I think the eco-utopian picture … is an unlikely outcome. I generally avoid over-population arguments. But there’s no question we’re in population overshoot. The catch is we’re not going to do anything about it. There will be no policy. The usual suspects: starvation, war, disease, will drive the population down. There’s little more to say about that really, and it’s certainly an unappetizing discussion, but it’s probably the truth. In any case, we’re in overshoot and we face vast resource scarcities. That’s it. The “usual suspects” are already doing their thing as worldwide food prices go up and peoples on the margin begin to suffer and starve.

   • 2014 September 29, Matt A.V. Chaban, “A Bid to Make the Park Lane Hotel a Landmark, but Not by the Usual Suspects”, in New York Times‎:

     And yet a quiet campaign is in the works to secure landmark protection for the 46-story limestone and glass tower. It is not being led by the usual suspects, like preservationists, community groups or politicians.

   • 2016 March 9, Hugh Schofield, “France unions and youths protest against labour reforms”, in BBC News‎:

     It was - to be only a little bit unfair - all the usual suspects at the Paris demo. Trotskyite students chanting against the patriarchy; anarchists; grizzled veterans of '68; plenty of pensioners; theatre-workers. In other words the regular left-wing alphabetti-spaghetti.

Synonyms

• (scapegoats): See Thesaurus:scapegoat
• (people or things that would be expected to appear): regulars

Coordinate terms

• (people or things that would be expected to appear): as usual, as always

Translations

people or things that would be expected to appear

French : toujours les mêmes Hungarian: a szokásos dolgok/személyek/gyanúsítottak pl, a szokásos társaság/​kompánia

References

1. Martin, Gary (2021 February 24 (last accessed)) “'The usual suspects' - the meaning and origin of this phrase”, in Phrasefinder‎