baragouins

Noun

baragouin (countable and uncountable, plural baragouins)

1. (countable) A pidgin.
   • 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.1888 April, Lafcadio Hearn, “Chita: A Memory of Last Island”, in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, volume LXXVI, number CCCCLV, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, publishers, 327 to 335 Pearl Street...
   1. (historical, specifically, uncountable) A pidgin spoken by French and First Nations people in the 17th century in the region of North America now called Montreal.
      • [T]he French he uttered was such a baragouin as would not be comprehended if it were put down on paper; […]1847, G[eorge] W[illiam] Featherstonhaugh, chapter XXI, in A Canoe Voyage up the Minnay Sotor; with an Account of the Lead and Copper Deposits in Wisconsin; of the Gold Region in the Cherokee County...
2. (uncountable) Unintelligible speech; gibberish, jargon.
   • I am sick of signals and ciphers and secret meetings and such baragouin.1909, O. Henry [pseudonym; William Sydney Porter], Roads of Destiny, New York, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, →OCLC; republished [Garden City, N.Y.]: Published by Doubleday, Page & Company for...