Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Unintelligible jargon; language so altered in sound or sense as not to be generally understood.

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • I am sick of signals and ciphers and secret meetings and such _baragouin_.

    Roads of Destiny O. Henry 1886

  • She spoke the rude French of the fishing villages, where the language lives chiefly as a baragouin, mingled often with words and forms belonging to many other tongues.

    Chita: a Memory of Last Island Lafcadio Hearn 1877

  • The result is a totally incoherent agglomeration of speech-forms -- a baragouin fantastic and unintelligible beyond the power of anyone to imagine who has not heard it ....

    Two Years in the French West Indies Lafcadio Hearn 1877

  • Moving into clearer etymological waters, we encounter the paradox that whilst Frenchmen have consistently dismissed Breton as a worthless baragouin ` patois, gibberish, 'the origin of that pejorative is undoubtedly Breton.

    VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol X No 2 1983

Comments

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  • Gibberish.

    May 16, 2008

  • JM respects baragouin wherever he encounters it.

    July 16, 2010