Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A specialized vocabulary or set of idioms used by a particular group.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The conventional slang of a class, originally that of thieves and vagabonds, devised for purposes of disguise and concealment; cant; slang.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A secret language or conventional slang peculiar to thieves, tramps, and vagabonds; flash.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A secret
language or conventional slang peculiar to thieves, tramps and vagabonds. - noun The specialized informal
vocabulary and terminology used between people with special skill in afield , such as between doctors, mathematicians orhackers ; ajargon .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a characteristic language of a particular group (as among thieves)
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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And by "the peg," in the argot, is meant the place where a free meal may be obtained.
THE PEG 2010
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Oh well, the stir, or the pen, as they call it in convict argot, is a training school for philosophy.
Chapter 3 2010
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Slim Gaillard's Vout dictionary: jazz hipster argot from the 30s
Boing Boing 2008
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“You see?” he asked in pidgin argot; a tongue that owed something to Persian, Caerdicci and Hellene alike; zenyan, it was called, but I learned that later.
Kushiel's Avatar Carey, Jacqueline, 1964- 2003
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Good enough, but it misses the pun: "potted meat" was Dublin argot for sex.
'Ulysses' in Chinese 1995
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Oh well, the stir, or the pen, as they call it in convict argot, is a training school for philosophy.
Chapter 3 1915
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And by ` the peg, 'in the argot, is meant the place where a free meal may be obtained.
The Peg 1903
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But as for "especially in popular fiction, the first criterion has to be readability",, of course that's true but to whom must it be readable; for example translating James Ellroy, or even Ken Bruen into, say, German must provide interesting problems in itself, and in such situations its at least as important for the translator to retain the rhythms and the 'argot' of the original.
Meet the man behind crime fiction's most despicable character Peter Rozovsky 2010
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It is really a sort of sublimated and apotheosized "argot," an "argot" of a kind of platonic archetypal drawing-room; such a drawing-room as has never existed perhaps, but to which all drawing-rooms or salons, if you will, of elegant conversation, perpetually approximate.
Suspended Judgments Essays on Books and Sensations John Cowper Powys 1917
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The 'argot' to which you doubtless refer was the invention of certain of your literary
Whirligigs O. Henry 1886
5814738 commented on the word argot
"There were certain ways of referring to things in the gang Henry was a part of (and which Eddie, as his little brother, was also a part of); the argot of their miserable little ka-tet . From Wizard and Glass by Stephen King.
January 10, 2011
Louises commented on the word argot
Flora was learning how to translate the Starkadder argot. Cold Comfort Farm.
February 23, 2013