Showing results for "lingo"

• a variation of lingoe.

lingo

¹ American  

[ling-goh] / ˈlɪŋ goʊ /

noun

• lingoes
  plural

1. the language and speech, especially the jargon, slang, or argot, of a particular field, group, or individual.

   gamblers' lingo.

2. language or speech, especially if strange or foreign.

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lingo ² American  

[ling-goh] / ˈlɪŋ goʊ /

noun

• lingoes
  plural

1. lingoe.

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lingo British  

/ ˈlɪŋɡəʊ /

noun

1. informal any foreign or unfamiliar language, jargon, etc

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• lingoes
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of lingo

1650–60; apparently alteration of lingua (franca); compare Polari lingo “language”

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Explanation

Lingo is a way of speaking that's shared by a particular group of people — it's their own personal slang or jargon. You might observe International Talk Like a Pirate Day by trying to speak only pirate lingo. Sometimes people refer to the language or dialect spoken in a place as its lingo: "I'd love to visit Paris, but I don't speak the lingo." You're more likely to hear lingo in the context of the words and phrases one group understands, but that outsiders might not, like computer lingo or English major lingo, or musician's lingo. Lingo shares a Latin root, lingua, or "tongue," with words like language and linguist.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

lingo lingoes

These types of initial roundups, dubbed "toppers" in White House press lingo, are usually followed by a long question-and-answer session in the packed room -- often extending to dozens of questions.

From Barron's ● Oct. 13, 2026

In modern lingo, plague is shorthand for something really awful: “I caught the plague last weekend!,”

From Slate ● Oct. 8, 2026

A New York Wheels is a macadamia almond milk iced latte to go — “wheels” is the lingo the baristas there use for “to go.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 18, 2026

Before paying medical bills, contact the provider and ask for an itemized bill that contains current procedural terminology, or CPT, codes, which are basically the lingo and the coding that the medical industry uses.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 1, 2026

Pollard, in the lingo of jockeys, asked Seabiscuit the question.

From "Seabiscuit: An American Legend" by Laura Hillenbrand

"I'll bet you hablar those French and German lingoes like a native," he ventured.

From Heart of the Sunset by Rex Ellingwood Beach

The young man's father was a consul; and he has half a dozen foreign lingoes stowed away in his brain.

From The Wing-and-Wing Le Feu-Follet by James Fenimore Cooper

"All the lingoes you ever heard of are talked in Brest," said the Dutchman.

From The Noank's Log A Privateer of the Revolution by W. O. Stoddard

Well, of all the lingoes I iver heard," said Flathootly, "this is the worst case yet.

From The Goddess of Atvatabar Being the history of the discovery of the interior world and conquest of Atvatabar by William Richard Bradshaw

Men may learn strange lingoes to humour their fellow-men, but how can any dog be expected to understand "Viens ici"?

From Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 153, December 12, 1917 by Various

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Related Words

• argot
• jargon
• patois
• slang
• vernacular
• vocabulary

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