Argot (French for "slang") is primarily slang used by various groups, including but not limited to thieves and other criminals, to prevent outsiders from understanding their conversations. Bruce Sterling defines argot as "the deliberately hermetic language of a small knowledge clique.... a super-specialized geek cult language that has no traction in the real world." For example: "He philosophized and recited baseball statistics in a Brooklyn argot that was fast-fading." Slang is the use of highly informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speakers dialect or language. ... Bruce Sterling at the Ars Electronica Festival Michael Bruce Sterling (born April 14, 1954) is an American science fiction author, best known for his novels and his seminal work on the Mirrorshades anthology, which defined the cyberpunk genre. ... A clique (pronounced AmE , BrE ) is an informal and restricted social group formed by people who share common interests (formal social groups are referred to as societies or organizations). ...
In William Aberg's "Siempre," set in an unusual Arizona jail that housed both men and women, a veteran talks a novice through fear of the penitentiary (the pinta, in Mexican argot) to which she is being sent.
The side road was a bit narrow but in good repair.
In the argot of geology, paleomagnetic specialists are sometimes called paleomagicians.
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