patois

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“
We were friends in a trice, for my patois was almost identical with his own, and he could not believe his own ears that he was talking with an Englishman La Petite Vitesse" bore out its name admirably, if it were meant to indicate exceeding slowness.

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Definitions (8)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (4)

  1. noun A regional dialect, especially one without a literary tradition.
  2. noun A creole.
  3. noun Nonstandard speech.
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Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (1)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

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Examples (50)

  • With Vinje, the founder of the movement for writing exclusively in Norwegian patois, Ibsen had a warm personal sympathy, while he gave no intellectual adherence to his theories. —  Henrik Ibsen
  • But they are what they are because they were conceived in the patois, and because their author was fired with a love of the language itself. —  Frederic Mistral
  • The language of the entire population was French, or a patois, as the European French term it—a provincialism which a Parisian finds it difficult to understand. —  The Memories of Fifty Years
  • Despite the patois, the vibe was pure corporate, with huge overhead right out of the gate and rules and regs galore. —  The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com
  • From the outsized flannels down to the lovably obnoxious patois, the Coen brothers 'masterpiece was a near-perfect portrait of Nowheresville life. —  Broward-Palm Beach New Times | Complete Issue
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This word has been looked up 155 times.

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Related

Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

terranglo ·  vituperation ·  expletive ·  profanity ·  lingo ·  dialect ·  slang ·  trouble-shooting ·  jargon ·  twang ·  monosyllable ·  idiom
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. French, from Old French, possibly from pate, paw, from Vulgar Latin *patta, perhaps of imitative origin.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. French, a dialect, from Old French patois, pathoys, patrois, a native or local speech, also a village, from Middle Latin as if *patrensis for patriensis, native, a native. from Latin patria, native country: see patrial.
 

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/pæˈtwɑ/
by American Heritage

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