Definition of "turkey"

It was a Turkey! He never could have stood upon his legs, that bird. He would have snapped 'em short off in a minute, like sticks of sealing-wax.

1843 December 19, Charles Dickens, “Stave Five. The End of It.”, in A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, London: Chapman & Hall, […], page 157

Mumford (1970) noted that the terms ‘crock’, ‘gomer’, and ‘turkey’, were sometimes utilized by interns to designate different types of undesirable patients, and sometimes used synonymously.]

[1976, Stephen Charles Frankel, Emergency Medical Care in an Urban Area (Ph.D. dissertation in Anthropology), Berkeley, Calif.: University of California, Berkeley, page 118

There were a few turkeys. In the rush to present a futuristic vision, the railways' heritage was largely forgotten and we ended up with new stations at Euston and at Coventry, its brash sidekick which I particularly loathe, although (of course) it won design awards.

2021 April 7, Christian Wolmar, “Electrification is a given... but comfort matters as well”, in RAIL, number 928, page 46