JARGON

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does jargon mean? 

• JARGON (noun)
  The noun JARGON has 3 senses:

1. a characteristic language of a particular group (as among thieves)

2. a colorless (or pale yellow or smoky) variety of zircon

3. specialized technical terminology characteristic of a particular subject

  Familiarity information: JARGON used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• JARGON (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A characteristic language of a particular group (as among thieves)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

argot; cant; jargon; lingo; patois; slang; vernacular

Context example:

they don't speak our lingo

Hypernyms ("jargon" is a kind of...):

non-standard speech (speech that differs from the usual accepted, easily recognizable speech of native adult members of a speech community)

Domain member usage:

tripper ((slang) someone who has taken a psychedelic drug and is undergoing hallucinations)

airhead (a flighty scatterbrained simpleton)

juice (energetic vitality)

skinful (a quantity of alcoholic drink sufficient to make you drunk)

key (a kilogram of a narcotic drug)

big bucks; big money; bundle; megabucks; pile (a large sum of money (especially as pay or profit))

juice (electric current)

wog ((offensive British slang) term used by the British to refer to people of color from Africa or Asia)

hymie; kike; sheeny; yid ((ethnic slur) offensive term for a Jew)

bad egg ((old-fashioned slang) a bad person)

butch; dike; dyke ((slang) offensive term for a lesbian who is noticeably masculine)

suit ((slang) a businessman dressed in a business suit)

squeeze ((slang) a person's girlfriend or boyfriend)

schlockmeister; shlockmeister ((slang) a merchant who deals in shoddy or inferior merchandise)

out-and-outer (someone who is excellent at something)

old man ((slang) boss)

guvnor ((British slang) boss)

good egg ((old-fashioned slang) a good person)

boffin ((British slang) a scientist or technician engaged in military research)

can-do (marked by a willingness to tackle a job and get it done)

drop-dead (extremely)

clean; plum; plumb (completely; used as intensifiers)

slam-bang (violent and sudden and noisy)

pint-size; pint-sized; runty; sawed-off; sawn-off (well below average height)

bolshy; stroppy (obstreperous)

mean (excellent)

some (remarkable)

grotty (very unpleasant or offensive)

butch ((of male or female homosexuals) characterized by stereotypically male traits or appearance)

uncool ((spoken slang) unfashionable and boring)

freaky (strange and somewhat frightening)

the shits; the trots (obscene terms for diarrhea)

besotted; blind drunk; blotto; cockeyed; crocked; fuddled; loaded; pie-eyed; pissed; pixilated; plastered; slopped; sloshed; smashed; soaked; soused; sozzled; squiffy; stiff; tight; wet (very drunk)

square; straight (rigidly conventional or old-fashioned)

bunk off; play hooky (play truant from work or school)

chuck; ditch (throw away)

hoof (dance in a professional capacity)

feel (pass one's hands over the sexual organs of)

buy it; pip out (be killed or die)

give (occur)

bitch (an unpleasant difficulty)

heebie-jeebies; jitters; screaming meemies (extreme nervousness)

square-bashing (drill on a barracks square)

soup-strainer; toothbrush (slang for a mustache)

legs (staying power)

cert (an absolute certainty)

dreck; schlock; shlock (merchandise that is shoddy or inferior)

nick ((British slang) a prison)

Mickey Finn (slang term for knockout drops)

gat; rod (a gangster's pistol)

deck (street name for a packet of illegal drugs)

caff (informal British term for a cafe)

shakedown (a very thorough search of a person or a place)

spic; spick; spik ((ethnic slur) offensive term for persons of Latin American descent)

dekko (British slang for a look)

hand job; jacking off; jerking off; wank (slang for masturbation)

blowjob; cock sucking (slang for fellatio)

ass; fuck; fucking; nookie; nooky; piece of ass; piece of tail; roll in the hay; screw; screwing; shag; shtup (slang for sexual intercourse)

power trip ((slang) a self-aggrandizing action undertaken simply for the pleasure of exercising control over other people)

shakedown (extortion of money (as by blackmail))

heist; rip-off (the act of stealing)

swiz (British slang for a swindle)

bite (a portion removed from the whole)

bay window; corporation; pot; potbelly; tummy (slang for a paunch)

Boche; Hun; Jerry; Kraut; Krauthead (offensive term for a person of German descent)

Jap; Nip ((offensive slang) offensive term for a person of Japanese descent)

dago; ginzo; greaseball; Guinea; wop ((ethnic slur) offensive term for a person of Italian descent)

Chinaman; chink ((ethnic slur) offensive term for a person of Chinese descent)

Injun; red man; Redskin ((slang) offensive term for Native Americans)

honkey; honkie; honky; whitey ((slang) offensive names for a White man)

poor white trash; white trash ((slang) an offensive term for White people who are impoverished)

'hood; hood ((slang) a neighborhood)

nosh-up (a large satisfying meal)

burnup (a high-speed motorcycle race on a public road)

bun-fight; bunfight ((Briticism) a grand formal party on an important occasion)

dibs (a claim of rights)

skin flick (a pornographic movie)

applesauce; codswallop; folderol; rubbish; trash; tripe; trumpery; wish-wash (nonsensical talk or writing)

baloney; bilgewater; boloney; bosh; drool; humbug; taradiddle; tarradiddle; tommyrot; tosh; twaddle (pretentious or silly talk or writing)

hooey; poppycock; stuff; stuff and nonsense (senseless talk)

corker ((dated slang) a remarkable or excellent thing or person)

niff; pong (an unpleasant smell)

arse; arsehole; asshole; bunghole (vulgar slang for anus)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "jargon"):

street name (slang for something (especially for an illegal drug))

rhyming slang (slang that replaces words with rhyming words or expressions and then typically omits the rhyming component)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A colorless (or pale yellow or smoky) variety of zircon

Classified under:

Nouns denoting substances

Synonyms:

jargon; jargoon

Hypernyms ("jargon" is a kind of...):

zircon; zirconium silicate (a common mineral occurring in small crystals; chief source of zirconium; used as a refractory when opaque and as a gem when transparent)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Specialized technical terminology characteristic of a particular subject

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("jargon" is a kind of...):

expressive style; style (a way of expressing something (in language or art or music etc.) that is characteristic of a particular person or group of people or period)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "jargon"):

doctorspeak (medical jargon)

ecobabble (using the technical language of ecology to make the user seem ecologically aware)

Eurobabble (the jargon of European community documents and regulations)

gobbledygook (incomprehensible or pompous jargon of specialists)

psychobabble (using language loaded with psychological terminology)

technobabble (technical jargon from computing and other high-tech subjects)

 Context examples 

It is very true, said Marianne, that admiration of landscape scenery is become a mere jargon.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Never had he heard such jargon of scholastic philosophy, such fine-drawn distinctions, such cross-fire of major and minor, proposition, syllogism, attack and refutation.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Old Buckhorse was skipping about on a box beside me, shrieking out criticisms and advice in strange, obsolete ring-jargon, which no one could understand.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

She began muttering,—The flame flickers in the eye; the eye shines like dew; it looks soft and full of feeling; it smiles at my jargon: it is susceptible; impression follows impression through its clear sphere; where it ceases to smile, it is sad; an unconscious lassitude weighs on the lid: that signifies melancholy resulting from loneliness.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

It is likewise to be observed, that this society has a peculiar cant and jargon of their own, that no other mortal can understand, and wherein all their laws are written, which they take special care to multiply; whereby they have wholly confounded the very essence of truth and falsehood, of right and wrong; so that it will take thirty years to decide, whether the field left me by my ancestors for six generations belongs to me, or to a stranger three hundred miles off.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Close behind the pack rode a fourrier and a yeoman-pricker, whooping on the laggards and encouraging the leaders, in the shrill half-French jargon which was the language of venery and woodcraft.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I detest jargon of every kind, and sometimes I have kept my feelings to myself, because I could find no language to describe them in but what was worn and hackneyed out of all sense and meaning.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Near Shotwood he came upon five seamen, on their way from Poole to Southampton—rude red-faced men, who shouted at him in a jargon which he could scarce understand, and held out to him a great pot from which they had been drinking—nor would they let him pass until he had dipped pannikin in and taken a mouthful, which set him coughing and choking, with the tears running down his cheeks.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)