geringonça

Meaning

1. (feminine) contraption (complicated and precarious machine)
2. (feminine) slang (language outside of conventional usage)
3. (feminine) government formed by minority parties in order to prevent a party which won a relative majority from governing instead

Concepts

contraption

Synonyms

engenhoca

Translations

Apparat

Gerät

Vorrichtung

machin

aggeggio

artilugio

Pronounced as (IPA)

/ʒe.ɾĩˈɡõ.sɐ/

Etymology

Borrowed from Spanish: jerigonza

In summary

Borrowed from Spanish jerigonza, from Old Occitan gergons, from Old French jargon. Doublet of jargão.
The political sense was coined by CDS – People's Party leader Paulo Portas in a speech to the Assembly on 10 November 2015 in reference to the XXI Constitutional Government of Portugal, formed by the Socialist Party through a confidence and supply arrangement with other leftist parties, "snubbing" the Social Democrats, who had won a plurality of both votes and seats. The term originally was originally pejorative, with media neutral or favorable to the new government simply not giving it any special name or calling it frente/governo da(s) esquerda(s) (literally, “front/government of the left(s)”), but the term has since been embraced by supporters of said government, and evolved to become a staple of Portuguese political jargon (English jargon coincidentally being a cognate of geringonça).