subs. (literary).—See quots. SLANG and CANT. Whence ARGOTIC = slangy.
1611. COTGRAVE, Dictionarie, s.v. Narquois [apparently for NARGUOIS]. A Cousener, Impostor, counterfeit Rogue … also, the gibbridge, or barbarous language, used among them.
1843. The Quarterly Review, clxii. 177. Words or expressions in an ancient language, if they happen to coincide with some modern ARGOT or vulgarism, take on a grotesque association which is not due at all to the phrase itself.
1860. F. W. FARRAR, An Essay on the Origin of Language, vi. Leaves an uninviting ARGOT in the place of warm and glowing speech. Ibid. ARGOT is formed … by the adoption of foreign words, by the absolute suppression of grammar, by grotesque tropes, wild catachresis, and allegorical metonymy.
1863. The Saturday Review, 31 Jan., 149. 2. ARGOTIC locutions.
1869. F. W. FARRAR, Families of Speech, ii. 78. The ARGOTS of nearly every nation.
1882. SMYTHE PALMER, Folk-Etymology, 573. ARGOT, the French word for slang, cant, was probably at first un nargot, denoting (1) a thief or robber, (2) thieves’ language.
1888. Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. ARGOT. [Of unknown origin.] The jargon, slang, or peculiar phraseology of a class, orig. that of thieves and rogues.
1888. BARRIÈRE, Argot and Slang, s.v. Narquois (old cant), formerly a thievish or vagrant old soldier … Parler narquois … to talk the jargon of vagabonds.
1899. Century Dictionary, s.v. ARGOT. The conventional slang of a class, originally that of thieves and vagabonds, devised for purposes of disguise and concealment.
