- patois
- "a provincial dialect," 1643, from Fr. patois "native or local speech," from O.Fr. patoier "handle clumsily, to paw," from pate "a paw," from V.L. *patta, perhaps imitative of the sound made by a paw. The language sense is probably from notion of clumsy manner of speaking. Especially in ref. to Jamaican English from 1934.