slang a word or phrase associated with the informal language of a particular social group. Interest in such usage has produced a range of studies and specialised reference works variously referred to as dictionaries of slang, cant or argot, such as Eric Partridge’s on soldiers’ vocabulary, but there are severe limitations on collecting evidence in an area where relative obscurity may be a feature of the discourse. (s. 127).
slang dictionary A type of reference work which documents and interprets slang, sometimes in a lighthearted manner. Dictionaries of slang are concerned with a kind of usage that may be obscure because of its ’in-group’ quality (a feature slang shares with jargon and argot), but it remains difficult to define and to differentiate from other languages for specific purposes, a problem compounded in the design and use of bilingual slang dictionaries. Although there is a long tradition going back to sixteenth-century dictionaries of beggars’ slang, and including J. S. Farmer and W. E. Henley’s seven-volume historical-comparative dictionary Slang and its Analogues Past and Present (New York NY, 1890-1904), the inherent limitation of collecting corpus data among relatively isolated social groups impedes progress. (s. 127).
R.R.K. Hartmann og Gregory James: Dictionary of Lexicography. London og New York: Routledge, 1998.