Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A specialized vocabulary or set of idioms used by a particular group: thieves' argot. See Synonyms at dialect.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The conventional slang of a class, originally that of thieves and vagabonds, devised for purposes of disguise and concealment; cant; slang.
Wiktionary
- n. A secret language or conventional slang peculiar to thieves, tramps and vagabonds.
- n. The specialized informal vocabulary and terminology used between people with special skill in a field, such as between doctors, mathematicians or hackers; a jargon.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A secret language or conventional slang peculiar to thieves, tramps, and vagabonds; flash.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a characteristic language of a particular group (as among thieves)
Etymologies
- From French argot (Wiktionary)
- French. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“And by "the peg," in the argot, is meant the place where a free meal may be obtained.”
“Slim Gaillard's Vout dictionary: jazz hipster argot from the 30s”
““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.”
“Good enough, but it misses the pun: "potted meat" was Dublin argot for sex.”
“Oh well, the stir, or the pen, as they call it in convict argot, is a training school for philosophy.”
“And by ` the peg, 'in the argot, is meant the place where a free meal may be obtained.”
“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
“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.”
“The 'argot' to which you doubtless refer was the invention of certain of your literary”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘argot’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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important
shamanism, consol, sanguine, iffy, affinity, concatenation, honed, innumberable, aiden, inexorable, vet, suss and 176 more...
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GRE Barron's 800
zealot, wistful, welter, wary, whimsical, warranted, vortex, vivisection, volatile, vitiate, viscous, visage and 787 more...
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New words
new words or spelling issues
voluble, Metagrobolize, salubrious, calumny, fugacity, withdrawal, bourse, hypertrophy, leitmotif, argot, improvident, damask and 241 more...
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(1st_wk_150)-Dec_5_2012
replete, steeped, eminent, indiscriminate, voracious, automaton, prognosticate, technology, abound, matron, tinge, compound and 297 more...
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moshe's list
prelapsarian, ear-rent, fusty, fray, foible, smug, abeyance, misandry, inkhorn, incarnate, argot
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Cold comfort farm again
cowdling, dormer, mullion, scullion, snood, snoot, scranlet, kith, oleaginous, lambency, dissever, loafing and 27 more...
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Metawords
Talking about talking, writing about writing, etc.
epizeuxis, tautological, aptote, bibliophagist, parataxis, scriptorium, aposiopesis, variorum, chantefable, boustrophedon, psellism, adoxography and 51 more...
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GRE Practice
coruscate, preternatural, preclude, retrench, perfidy, sophistry, sedulous, martinet, churlish, dissembler, prevarication, impugn and 38 more...
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These words are about words.
words on words. yyep.
codex, folio, lexicon, tome, word stock, wordbook, wordlist, palaver, word index, argot, parlance, doublespeak and 68 more...
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GRE Words
abjure, unswear, state, rescission, indemnification, ab, reny, abnegate, vitiated, vitiate, adumbrated, abash and 378 more...
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SAT PSAT ALPHABETICAL A
abandon, abash, abate, abjure, ablution, abnegate, abominable, aboriginal, abortive, abrade, abridge, abrogate and 172 more...
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My GRE words
abase, abate, aberrant, abet, abeyance, abject, abjure, ablution, abnegation, abortive, abrogate, abscission and 140 more...
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List Erine
cool mint antiseptic
shalom, cattywampus, bourgeoisie, aerophile, traverse, grotto, epicurean, ex cathedra, nautilus, epitaph, lathe, continuum and 753 more...
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GRE
Taisha GRE Bible
archaic, archetype, archipelago, architect, archive, arctic, ardor, arduous, argot, arid, armory, arrest and 289 more...
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Naresh_Gre
The path meanders through the vineyards
meander, labyrinth, Sinuous, gyrate, caron, awry, credo, banter, juxtaposition, argot, inexorable, foibles and 223 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for argot.

Louises Flora was learning how to translate the Starkadder argot. Cold Comfort Farm. Feb 22, 2013
Casey "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. Jan 10, 2011