Word.ws English Dictionary

St Giles' Greek

St Giles' Greek proper noun: a secret language, as spoken by beggars and thieves.

Proper noun

St Giles' Greek

  1. (cant) A secret language, as spoken by beggars and thieves.

Origin of St Giles' Greek

The term comes from the St Giles' area of present-day central London which, during the 17th and 18th centuries, was notorious as a refuge for thieves and other criminals.

Questions about St Giles' Greek

What does St Giles' Greek mean?
St Giles' Greek means a secret language, as spoken by beggars and thieves.
What part of speech is St Giles' Greek?
St Giles' Greek is a proper noun.

Words near St Giles' Greek in the dictionary

  1. St Georges-super-Ely
  2. St Germains
  3. St Germans
  4. St Giles in the Wood
  5. St Giles on the Heath
  6. St Giles' Greek
  7. St Giles's Hill
  8. St Helena
  9. St Helena plover
  10. St Helena plovers
  11. St Helens

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: St Giles' Greek (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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Cite this entry: “St Giles' Greek.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/st_giles%27_greek. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.