''jargon'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20250827013045-00-⌔

jargon - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

jargon (countable and uncountable, plural jargons)

• (uncountable) A technical terminology unique to a particular subject.
  • ✤ Sometimes it pays to overcomplicate your simple messages. Make a list of ten-dollar words, scientific terms, and obscure niblets of jargon and find ways to use them. Your reputation and authority will soar.¹
  • ✤ That’s one of the biggest hurdles of managing a router and your network security in general, it’s a massive chore that is fraught with technical jargon, hurdles and screens saying ‘no’, ‘invalid’ or ‘not available’.²
• (countable) A language characteristic of a particular group.
  • ✤ They [the Normans] abandoned their native speech, and adopted the French tongue, in which Latin was the predominant element. They speedily raised their new language to a dignity and importance which it had never before possessed. They found it a barbarous jargon; they fixed it in writing; and they employed it in legislation, in poetry, and in romance.³
  • ✤ In fact all the competing theories have developed their own specialized jargons and have a tendency to be difficult to penetrate.⁴
• (uncountable) Speech or language that is incomprehensible or unintelligible; gibberish.
  • ✤ Cut the jargon and get to your point.

Verb

jargon (third-person singular simple present jargons, present participle jargoning, simple past and past participle jargoned)

• To utter jargon; to emit confused or unintelligible sounds.
  • ✤ Human ill-nature needs but some Homoiousian iota, or even the pretence of one; and will flow copiously through the eye of a needle: thus always must mortals go jargoning and fuming […].⁵
  • ✤ Prussian Trenck, the poor subterranean Baron, jargons and jangles in an unmelodious manner.⁶
  • ✤ [T]he noisy jay,/Jargoning like a foreigner at his food; […]⁷

Noun

jargon (countable and uncountable, plural jargons)

• Alternative form of jargoon (“A variety of zircon”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈdʒɑː.ɡən/
• (General American) IPA: /ˈd͡ʒɑɹ.ɡən/
• Audio (General American): 🔊
• Rhymes: -ɑː(ɹ)ɡən
• Hyphenation: jar‧gon

Etymology 1

From Middle English jargoun, jargon, from Old French jargon, a variant of gargon, gargun (“chatter; talk; language”).

Etymology 2

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

1. 2018 June 13, Michael Schein, “Author Simon Sinek Is Full Of Hot Air (And Other Reasons You Should Follow His Lead)”, in Forbes ‎${}^{[1]}$, archived from the original on 13 July 2020: ↩

2. 2022 May 17, Rob Andrews, “Synology SRM 1.3 Software Review Part 4 – The Safe Access Application”, in NAS Compares ‎${}^{[2]}$, archived from the original on 21 May 2022: ↩

3. 1849, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter I, in The History of England from the Accession of James II, volume I, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC, page 11: ↩

4. 2014, Ian Hodder, Archaeological Theory Today: ↩

5. 1837, Thomas Carlyle, chapter III, in The French Revolution: A History […], volume II (The Constitution), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, book IV (Varennes): ↩

6. 1837, Thomas Carlyle, “Fatherland in Danger”, in The French Revolution: A History […], volume III (The Guillotine), London: James Fraser, […], →OCLC, book III (The Girondins), page 184: ↩

7. 1863 November 23, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Poet’s Tale. The Birds of Killingworth.”, in Tales of a Wayside Inn, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC, page 195: ↩