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argot

UK/ˈɑːɡəʊ/US/ˈɑɹɡoʊ/
nounC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #14,944 of 15,258Too rare in one of the two pools to compare — fewer than 20 uses in speech or in writing

Other forms: argots

Argot is the private slang of a particular group. Thieves' argot, the argot of the trade, speak in argot.

It differs from jargon in intent: jargon is technical shorthand and argot is meant to keep outsiders out. The word is French and keeps its French sound, with the t silent. Criminal argot is the classic example and the one the word was first used for.

Definitions of argot

  1. 1nounargotThe private slang of a particular group.C2

    “The prisoners spoke in an argot that the guards could not understand.”

argot is a language.

Where it comes from

French argot originally meant the community of beggars and thieves, then their language. Its own origin is unknown.

  1. French

    argot

  2. English, today

    argot

Borrowed from French argot, of unknown origin.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

argot in the wild

  • Nadsat is a fictional register or argot used by the teenage gang members in Anthony Burgess' dystopian novel A Clockwork Orange.

    Nadsat

  • Besides referring to the music scene, much of the argot related to drugs, such as marijuana.

    Jive talk

  • The title is a pun playing on the Parisian java dance and the javanais argot.

    La Javanaise

  • Some linguists from Cluj County have defined the argot as a "rural professional argot", which would be the only one of this type known in Romania.

    Gumuțeasca

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.