argot
- noun
- /ˈɑrɡoʊ/
- Jargon
- The new members struggled to understand the industry argot used in daily meetings.
Examples
-
His reach often exceeds his grasp, as when he tries to capture the argot of the young.
Blog text (17) -
Also, my formal Mexico City Spanish did me little good in San José, where I was required to learn the pachuco argot of that city's street people to learn what was happening (cf. Page, 1977).
Academic text (2009) -
From the next cell, the answer came back in the same incomprehensible argot.
Fiction book (2002) -
Does it also mean that we should try to sprinkle our book talk with the latest teenage argot?
Academic text (2007) -
"Counterinsurgency, known as COIN in military argot, is much more ambitious.
Academic text (2009) -
In iconographic argot, convicts advertise their history and status on their skin.
Academic text (1993) -
Within the current tongue, there are all the regionalisms and dialects, funny ethnic mixes, slang, and the argot of the gangs.
Fiction book (1994) -
The puffy, smiling face of Dean Andrews, framed by huge black glasses, talks in a Louisiana hippie argot of the '50s.
Fiction book (1991) -
Even the president of the Spanish Consejo Superior de Deportes lamented slightly over a decade ago that "the lack of a normalization of sports language has led to the massive usage of a specific argot that, many times, is incomprehensible to the uninitiated."
Academic text (1995) -
In this sense, the literary creation of personhood is inevitably intertextual (or more precisely, interdiscursive); the writer must rely on the existing argots of understanding or else cease to be intelligible.
Academic text (1990)
Synonyms
Words used by a group or job that others cannot understand
Words and phrases a group uses that people outside it do not understand
Special words used by a group to hide meaning from others
Language that uses many informal words people outside a group may not understand
A special set of words used by people in a particular job or field
Antonyms
How Specialized
Surface Forms
Etymology
Argot came into English from French where it named the 'secret speech' used by thieves and small groups. That's why argot now means a private 'code' or special words a group uses so outsiders do not understand, much like 'slang' or 'jargon'.