noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A secretive language form used by a subculture; an arcane cant.

   "Cockney rhyming slang developed originally from the cryptolects of London’s thieves and vagabonds."

Synonyms

All synonyms

antilanguageargotcant

Example

More examples

"Cockney rhyming slang developed originally from the cryptolects of London’s thieves and vagabonds."

Etymology

From crypto- (prefix ‘hidden; secret’) + -lect (suffix denoting a language variety).

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