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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

Polari.

A cant used in the London fishmarkets, in the British theatre, and by the gay community in Britain, attested since at least the 19th century and popularised in the 1950s and 1960s by the camp characters Julian and Sandy in the popular BBC radio show Round the Horne.

6 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

name/pəˈlɑːri/
  1. A cant used in the London fishmarkets, in the British theatre, and by the gay community in Britain, attested since at least the 19th century and popularised in the 1950s and 1960s by the camp characters Julian and Sandy in the popular BBC radio show Round the Horne.

  2. A cant used by travelling showmen in Britain.

Where this word comes from

Borrowed from Polari, from Italian parlare (“to talk”). The loss of the first r and the changing vowel quality of the non-stressed vowels is due to the non-rhotic UK accent which reinterpreted the phonemes. The adoption of the infinitive form means that the word probably originated from a Romance-based creole or pidgin like Sabir. First use in English appears c. 1846, in the writings of Lord Chief Baron.

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Polari studioPolari workshello, Polari

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.