Baragouin

//ˈbæɹəɡwæ̃// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A pidgin. countable

    "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."

  2. 2
    A pidgin.; A pidgin spoken by French and First Nations people in the 17th century in the region of North America now called Montreal. historical, specifically, uncountable

    "[T]he French he uttered was such a baragouin as would not be comprehended if it were put down on paper; […]"

  3. 3
    Unintelligible speech; gibberish, jargon. uncountable

    "I am sick of signals and ciphers and secret meetings and such baragouin."

Example

More examples

"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."

Etymology

Borrowed from French baragouin (“unintelligible speech or writing”).

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.