slangs

Noun

slang (countable and uncountable, plural slangs)

1. Language outside of conventional usage and in the informal register.
   • She was amused by his talk, which was simple, straightforward, rather humorous and keen, and interspersed with homely expressions of a style which is sometimes called slang.1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 26, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published...
2. Language that is unique to a particular profession or subject; jargon.
3. The specialized language of a social group, sometimes used to conceal one's meaning from outsiders; cant.
   • "Oh, there are so many superior teas and sugars now. Superior is getting to be shopkeepers' slang. / "Are you beginning to dislike slang, then?" said Rosamond, with mild gravity. / "Only the wrong sort. All choice of words is slang. It marks a class." / "There is correct English: that is not...1871, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter XI, in Middlemarch […], volume I, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book I, page 172
4. (countable) A particular variety of slang; the slang used by a particular group.
   • [F]or a detailed analysis see Liberman (2008 157ff) who sees it as one of a number of terms found in pan-European slangs meaning concealment and/or cheating.2023, Jonathon Green, Green’s Dictionary of Slang
5. (countable) An item of slang; a slang word or expression.
   • Anyway, I have learned many slangs while I am in New York, and one of them, a remarkable slang, is sheister.1921, Horace Fish, The Great Way: A Story of the Joyful, the Sorrowful, the Glorious, New York: Mitchell Kennerley
6. (India, countable) A curse word.
   • Such attempts were made even more aggressive by the fact that these local women were known for picking fights easily and using slangs to verbally abuse their neighbours.2021, Sadan Jha, Dev Nath Pathak, Amiya Kumar Das, Neighbourhoods in Urban India: In Between Home and the City, page 82

See all 14 meanings of slang