argot

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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 29, 2026 is: argot \AHR-goh\ noun Argot refers to the language or set of words used by a particular group of people.

// The novels were such a success that fans began communicating in the secret argot spoken by the series' characters.

See the entry > Examples: " [Lenny] Bruce, born Leonard Alfred Schneider on Long Island, quit school at 16 and got his start telling jokes at a Brooklyn nightclub for $12 a week.

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Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 29, 2026 is: argot \AHR-goh\ noun Argot refers to the language or set of words used by a particular group of people. // The novels were such a success that fans began communicating in the secret argot spoken by the series' characters. See the entry > Examples: " [Lenny] Bruce, born Leonard Alfred Schneider on Long Island, quit school at 16 and got his start telling jokes at a Brooklyn nightclub for $12 a week.

How it works

He riffed in a Beatnik argot, and his act took on the flavor of improvisational jazz." — Christopher Goffard, The Los Angeles Times, 16 Aug.
Jargon, the Anglo-French ancestor of which meant "twittering of birds," had been used for specialized (and often obscure or pretentious) vocabulary since the 1600s.
English novelist and lawyer Henry Fielding used it of "court gibberish"—what we tend to call legalese.

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jazz joints around Southern California in the mid-1950s. Speaking of legalese, the suffix -ese is a newer me...

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