tosh

• IPA^(key): /tɒʃ/
• Rhymes: -ɒʃ

From 19th-century British thieves' cant, of uncertain origin. Sense of nonsense possibly influenced by tush (“nonsense! tsk tsk!”) attested from 15th century.

• (nonsense) tush

tosh (countable and uncountable, plural toshes)

1. (Britain, obsolete slang, uncountable) Copper; items made of copper
   • 1851, H. Mayhew, London labour and the London poor, II. 150/2

     The sewer-hunters were formerly, and indeed are still, called by the name of Toshers, the articles which they pick up in the course of their wanderings along shore being known among themselves by the general term ‘tosh’, a word more particularly applied by them to anything made of copper.

2. (chiefly Britain, uncommon slang, uncountable) Valuables retrieved from sewers and drains
   • 1974, J. Aiken, Midnight is Place, v. 164

     I am present engaged in fishing for tosh in the sewers of Blastburn.

3. (chiefly Britain, slang, uncountable) Rubbish, trash, (now) especially in the sense of nonsense, bosh, balderdash
   • 1892 October 26, Oxford University Magazine, 26/1

     To think what I've gone through to hear that man! Frightful tosh it'll be, too.

   • 1911, H. G. Wells, The New Machiavelli, ch. 5,

     Perhaps it helped a man into Parliament, Parliament still being a confused retrogressive corner in the world where lawyers and suchlike sheltered themselves from the onslaughts of common-sense behind a fog of Latin and Greek and twaddle and tosh.

   • 1997, J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, iv

     ‘Took yeh from the ruined house myself, on Dumbledore’s orders. Brought yeh ter this lot...’

     ‘Load of old tosh,’ said Uncle Vernon.

4. (Britain, archaic school slang, countable) A bath or foot pan
   • 1881, Leathes in C.E. Pascoe, Everyday Life in our Public Schools, ii. 20

     A ‘tosh’ pan... is also provided.

   • 1905, H. A. Vachell, Hill, i

     We call a tub a tosh.

5. (cricket, slang, derogatory, uncountable) Easy bowling
   • 1898 June 25, Tit-Bits, 252/3

     Among the recent neologisms of the cricket field is ‘tosh’, which means bowling of contemptible easiness.

6. (Britain, humorous slang, uncountable) Used as a form of address.
   • 1954, E. Hyams, Stories & Cream, 175

     'Ere, tosh, you bin at Cha'ham?

• See Thesaurus:nonsense

• toshy, toshing

tosh (third-person singular simple present toshes, present participle toshing, simple past and past participle toshed)

1. (Britain, obsolete slang) To steal copper, particularly from ship hulls
   • 1867, W. H. Smyth, Sailor's Word-book
   • Toshing, a cant word for stealing copper sheathing from vessels' bottoms, or from dock-yard stores.
2. (chiefly Britain, uncommon slang) To search for valuables in sewers
   • 1974, J. Aiken, Midnight is Place, vi. 180

     You tend to the toshing, let Mester Hobday tend to the dealing.

3. (Britain, archaic school slang) To use a tosh-pan, either to wash, to splash, or to "bath"
   • 1883, J.P. Groves, From Cadet to Captain, iii. 227

     ‘Toshing’ was the name given to a punishment inflicted by the cadets on any one of their number who made himself obnoxious. The victim, dressed in full uniform, was forced to run the gauntlet of his brother cadets, who, as he passed, emptied the contents of their ‘tosh-cans’ (small baths holding about three gallons of water) over the wretched lad's head.

   • 1903, J. S. Farmer & al., Slang, VII. 171/1

     He toshed his house beak by mistake, and got three hundred.

Compare Old French tonce (“shorn, clipped”) and English tonsure.

tosh (comparative tosher, superlative toshest)

1. (Scotland, obsolete) Tight.
   • 1776, D. Herd, Ancient & Modern Scottish Songs

     Tosh, tight, neat.

2. (Scotland) Neat, clean; tidy, trim.
   • 1794, J. Ritson, Scottish Songs, I. 99

     I gang ay fou clean and fou tosh

     As a' the neighbours can tell.

3. (Scotland) Comfortable, agreeable; friendly, intimate.
   • 1821, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, 10 4

     We were a very tosh and agreeable company.

• toshy, toshly

tosh (comparative more tosh, superlative most tosh)

1. (Scotland) Toshly: neatly, tidily
   • 1808, J. Mayne, Siller Gun, i. 20

     Shouther your arms!—O! had them tosh on, And not athraw!

tosh (third-person singular simple present toshes, present participle toshing, simple past and past participle toshed)

1. (Scotland) To make ‘tosh’: to tidy, to trim.
   • 1826 November, J. Wilson, Noctes Ambrosianae, xxix, in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, 788

     Hoo she wad try to tosh up... her breest.

From 19th-century British slang tosheroon, from or alongside tusheroon, of uncertain derivation from British slang caroon (“crown, a 5-shilling silver coin”), from Sabir and (originally) Italian corona (“crown”). The term was either derived from or influenced by madza caroon, the British slang for the Sabir and Italian mezzo corona (“half-crown”), possibly under influence from tosh (“copper items; valuables”) above or from the half-crown's value of two shillings, sixpence.

• tush

tosh (countable and uncountable, plural toshes)

1. (Britain, obsolete slang, countable) A half-crown coin; its value
   • 1933, George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London, xxix

     ‘’Ere y’are, the best rig-out you ever ’ad. A tosheroon [half a crown] for the coat, two ’ogs for the trousers, one and a tanner for the boots, and a ’og for the cap and scarf. That’s seven bob.’

   • 1961, Eric Partridge, The Routledge Dictionary of Historical Slang

     tush or tosh. Money: Cockney: late C.19–20. Ex: tusheroon... But H. errs, I believe: he should mean half-a-crown, for tusheroon and its C.20 variant tossaroon (2s. 6d.) are manifest corruptions of Lingua Franca MADZA CAROON.

   • 1961, J. Maclaren-Ross, Doomsday Book, i. v. 63

     Here's a tosh to buy yourself some beer.

2. (Britain, obsolete slang, countable) A crown coin; its value
   • 1859, J.C. Hotten, A Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words

     Half-a-crown is known as an alderman, half a bull, half a tusheroon, and a madza caroon; whilst a crown piece, or five shillings, may be called either a bull, or a caroon, or a cartwheel, or a coachwheel, or a thick-un, or a tusheroon.

   • 1912, J.W. Horsley, I Remember, xii. 253

     ‘Tush’, for money, would be an abbreviation of ‘tusheroon’, which in old cant, and also in tinker dialect, signified a crown.

3. (Britain, archaic slang, uncountable) Any money, particularly pre-decimalization British coinage

• Oxford English Dictionary. "tosh, n.^1-5, adj. & adv., and v.^1-2". Oxford University Press (Oxford), 1913 & 1986.
• Webster’s New International Dictionary of the English Language, rev. ed. "Tosh". 1913.
• A Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words. James Camden Hotten (London), 1859.
• The Routledge Dictionary of Historical Slang. Routledge (London), 1961.

• HOTs, Thos., host, hots, oths, shot

From Proto-Turkic *diāĺ.

tosh (plural toshlar)

1. stone (small piece of stone)