jargon, pejorative term applied to speech or writing that is considered meaningless, unintelligible, or ugly. In one sense the term is applied to the special language of a profession, which may be unnecessarily complicated, e.g., "medical jargon." Jargon can also mean clumsy language that is hard to understand, synonymous with gibberish or gobbledygook, or a mixture of languages that serves different people (see lingua franca).

Chinook jargon, lingua franca of early traders on the Northwest Coast of the United States and Canada. It included Chinook, Nootka, English, and French words, with various borrowings.