Names of shapes in Polish criminal slang: preliminary observations

Names of geometric shapes, scientifically defined entities, may have non-scientific meanings which are worth studying. The article attempts to investigate if the names of shapes are present in Polish criminal slang, what these names are, and what meanings are attributed to them. In this way, a new semantic dimension of the terms is analysed. The study, based on two dictionaries of Polish criminal slang, shows that only four names of geometric shapes, namely koło ‘circle’, kwadrat ‘square’, trójkąt ‘triangle’ and kula ‘ball’, are present in prison slang. As the key feature of criminal slang is being incomprehensible for outsiders, a significant level of obscurity stemming from the creativity of slang users can be observed in the examples subject to the analysis. In some cases, though, the relation between the name of the shape and its referents is more evident. In addition, certain meanings of the names of geometric shapes are present also in other varieties of Polish (e.g. school or university jargon), which means that inter-slang borrowing is taking place, too.