jargon

Language that is complex and hard to understand, usually because it is highly technical or occupational, used in the wrong contexts, or designed to impress or confuse (‘technical jargon’; ‘writing in pseudoscientific jargon’; ‘using a meaningless jargon’).

Jargon can be subcategorized as, for example, bureaucratese or officialese (the usage of bureaucrats and officials), journalese (the language of newspapers), and medicalese (the usage of doctors), and so on. In writing, jargon may be highly formal, whereas in speech it often contains slang expressions.

Jargon is necessary, since engineers, doctors, carpenters, and other specialists need more terms to describe the intricacies of their trade to one another than an outsider would need to know. However this exclusivity is sometimes exploited so as to exclude those who do not understand the jargon. This is equally true for slang and for specialist terms.