as in dialect
the special terms or expressions of a particular group or field
the medical patois that the hospital staffers used among themselves was incomprehensible to me
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of patois
Elliott spits her verses in patois, freeing up space on the track for the drums to get some before Cartel and M.I.A. slide through.
41.
—
Steven J. Horowitz, Vulture, 11 Apr. 2025
And so there’s West Indian patois and language and music and food.
—Vanessa Franko, Los Angeles Times, 27 Jan. 2025
There are countless examples like these, in which English scaffolding has adapted to the demands and the cultural heritage of its speakers, from Jamaican patois to Tok Pisin, of New Guinea.
—Manvir Singh, The New Yorker, 23 Dec. 2024
Instead, viewers are immersed in Millie’s Kingston, with dialogue spoken almost entirely in Jamaican patois, where opportunities are limited, gang violence persists and whiteness is still put on a pedestal.
—Aramide Tinubu, Variety, 25 Nov. 2024
See All Example Sentences for patois
Steven J. Horowitz, Vulture, 11 Apr. 2025
And so there’s West Indian patois and language and music and food.
—Vanessa Franko, Los Angeles Times, 27 Jan. 2025
There are countless examples like these, in which English scaffolding has adapted to the demands and the cultural heritage of its speakers, from Jamaican patois to Tok Pisin, of New Guinea.
—Manvir Singh, The New Yorker, 23 Dec. 2024
Instead, viewers are immersed in Millie’s Kingston, with dialogue spoken almost entirely in Jamaican patois, where opportunities are limited, gang violence persists and whiteness is still put on a pedestal.
—Aramide Tinubu, Variety, 25 Nov. 2024
See All Example Sentences for patois
Recent Examples of Synonyms for patois
Noun
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But Simeon Silverio, former publisher of the San Diego Asian Journal, said Bayani reflects only one of many Filipino dialects and would fail to represent the country’s diverse cultural groups, each of which has its own word for hero.—
Walker Armstrong,
San Diego Union-Tribune,
22 Oct. 2025
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Even something as simple as the Chicago dialect and John Gacy’s individual odd, idiosyncratic way of speaking.—
Seth Abramovitch,
HollywoodReporter,
21 Oct. 2025
Noun
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This tactic can be especially useful for listing AI-relevant skills that may be written using specific terminology.—
Ethan Stone,
Ascend Agency,
29 Oct. 2025
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Last year, Jimmy didn’t even know any defensive terminology.—
Jon Conahan,
MSNBC Newsweek,
10 Oct. 2025
Noun
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Linguists have argued that its limitless potential is what gives human languages their ability to generate an infinite number of possible sentences out of a finite vocabulary and a finite set of rules.—
Steve Nadis,
Quanta Magazine,
31 Oct. 2025
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Nana was proud of how, in eight months, the boy had gone from not speaking to having a vocabulary closer to developmental guidelines.—
Jayme Fraser,
USA Today,
30 Oct. 2025
Noun
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In a similar vein, Timnit Gebru, a computer scientist writing during her time working at Google, warned of the dangers of large language models acting as stochastic parrots, which repeat language patterns without understanding, and in doing so replicate the biases embedded in their training data.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
5 Nov. 2025
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The dust-up stems back to the Spanish singer’s recent appearance on the New York Times’ Popcast, where she was asked about singing in about 13 different languages one her new album Lux and the challenges of communicating with a global audience.—
Jon Blistein,
Rolling Stone,
5 Nov. 2025
Noun
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Combining 1980s cumbia and salsa with urban and Andean sounds, lyrics that highlight Ecuadorian slang and identity, and a recognizable deep voice, Machaka stands out for his freshness and authenticity.—
Tere Aguilera,
Billboard,
29 Oct. 2025
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Today on the show, San Francisco slang.—
Darian Woods,
NPR,
27 Oct. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Patois.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/patois. Accessed 6 Nov. 2025.
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