Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The specialized vocabulary of a particular field or social group, especially when viewed as unfamiliar.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Language; speech; especially, a peculiar kind of speech, more or less unintelligible; a dialect.
  • noun A large leguminous tree, Pterocarpus Indicus, or its wood. See kiabooca-wood.
  • noun The weight attached to the heddle-cord in a Jacquard loom.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Slang Language; speech; dialect.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Language, especially language peculiar to a particular group or region; jargon or a dialect.

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

[Perhaps from Portuguese lingoa, tongue, language, or from Lingua Franca lingua, language; akin to Catalan llengua, Italian lingua, and Spanish lengua, tongue, language, all ultimately from Latin lingua; see dn̥ghū- in Indo-European roots.]

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  • "Iron. I'm very iron-deficient. He relayed the information that this was somehow linked to the platelet problem caused by his illness. (Animals often pick up on the medical lingo their vets use in their presence.) And tell Father I'm sorry I'm such a burden. When I did, Chris's eyes filled with tears."

    Amelia Kinkade: Straight from the horse's mouth. How to talk to animals and get answers. 2001.

    March 12, 2008