polari
/pəˈlɑːri/
polari verb: to speak or talk, particularly in slang or cant.
Verb
polari (third-person singular simple present polaris, present participle polariing or polarying, simple past and past participle polaried)
- To speak or talk, particularly in slang or cant.
- Will you take a varder at the cartz on the feely-omi in the naf strides: the one with the bona blue ogles polarying the omi-palone with a vogue on and a cod sheitel.1997, James Gardiner, Who's a Pretty Boy Then?, page 137
Proper noun capitalized: Polari
Polari
- A cant used in the London fishmarkets, in the British theatre, and by the gay community in Britain, attested since at least the 19th century and popularised in the 1950s and 1960s by the camp characters Julian and Sandy in the popular BBC radio show Round the Horne.
- A cant used by travelling showmen in Britain.
Forms of polari
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | polaris |
| present participle | polariing |
| present participle | polarying |
| past participle | polaried |
| past | polaried |
| Proper noun | |
| alternative form | Palare |
| alternative form | Palari |
| alternative form | Palarie |
| alternative form | Parlare |
| alternative form | Parlary |
| alternative form | Parlyaree |
Origin of polari
From Italian parlare (“to talk”). See Polari for more.
Borrowed from Polari, from Italian parlare (“to talk”). The loss of the first r and the changing vowel quality of the non-stressed vowels is due to the non-rhotic UK accent which reinterpreted the phonemes. The adoption of the infinitive form means that the word probably originated from a Romance-based creole or pidgin like Sabir. First use in English appears c. 1846, in the writings of Lord Chief Baron.
Questions about polari
- What does polari mean?
- Polari means to speak or talk, particularly in slang or cant.
- What part of speech is polari?
- Polari can be a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce polari?
- Polari is pronounced /pəˈlɑːri/.
- What is the past tense of polari?
- The past tense of polari is polaried.
Words near polari in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: polari (page history and authors); Polari (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-Polari.wav.
Cite this entry: “polari.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/polari. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.