argot

[ ahr-goh, -guht ]

noun

1. a specialized idiomatic vocabulary peculiar to a particular class or group of people, especially that of an underworld group, devised for private communication and identification:

   a Restoration play rich in thieves' argot.

2. the special vocabulary and idiom of a particular profession or social group:

   sociologists' argot.

argot

/ ˈɑːɡəʊ; ɑːˈɡɒtɪk /

noun

1. slang or jargon peculiar to a particular group, esp (formerly) a group of thieves

Derived Forms

• argotic, adjective

Other Words From

• ar·got·ic [ahr-, got, -ik], adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of argot¹

1855–60; < French, noun derivative of argoter to quarrel, derivative Latin ergō ergo with v. suffix -oter

Word History and Origins

Origin of argot¹

C19: from French, of unknown origin

Example Sentences

He is talking of change, the future, but in the argot of imagination.

From The Daily Beast

She can understand and speak the language of the beat cop as well as the argot of the legal scholar.

From Washington Post

The inseparable Thingumy and Bob speak an argot of spoonerisms (“Nake no totice” and so on), and carry a secret ruby.

From The Daily Beast

Lacking devoted patronage, there Telugu evolved into a spectacularly hideous argot.

From The Daily Beast

The motions will “ripen,” in the rather charming legislative argot applied to this aggressively charmless process, next Tuesday.

From The Daily Beast

Under all the revolutionary argot, the new state functioned just like the old state - only worse.

From The Daily Beast

For those unfamiliar with the argot, a “buffalo” is a “nickel” uh, five years?

From The Daily Beast

His songs were in argot French, imitations of what he had heard in low cabarets on the Seine when he was at work there.

From Project Gutenberg

She smiled as portions of the argot the painter beside her was using, filtered into her consciousness.

From Project Gutenberg

No sensible man can envy Asylas, to whom the language of birds was as familiar as French argot to our young décadents.

From Project Gutenberg

But in the outer salon the talk was to the last degree shoppy, and overflowed with the argot of the studios.

From Project Gutenberg

You are really not at all sure that the white face belonged to Argot, are you?

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• lingo
• parlance
• patois
• vernacular