tosh

plural toshes · alternative tush

1. UKobsoleteslanguncountableCopper; items made of copper.

   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.

   [1851, Henry Mayhew, “Of the Sewer-hunters”, in London Labour and the London Poor; […], volume II (The London Street-folk. Book the Second.), London: [Griffin, Bohn, and Company], →OCLC, page 150, column 2

2. UKrareslanguncountableValuables retrieved from drains and sewers.

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

   1974, Joan Aiken, Midnight is a Place, page 164

3. UKslanguncountableRubbish, trash, (now especially) nonsense, bosh, balderdash

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

   1892 October 26, Oxford University Magazine, number 26/1

   2 more examples

   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.

   1911, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, chapter 5, in The New Machiavelli, London: John Lane; The Bodley Head […], →OCLC

   ‘Took yeh from the ruined house myself, on Dumbledore’s orders. Brought yeh ter this lot...’ ‘Load of old tosh,’ said Uncle Vernon.

   1997 June 26, J. K. Rowling [pseudonym; Joanne Rowling], chapter 4, in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Harry Potter; 1), London: Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN

4. UKcountablearchaic school slangA bath or foot pan

   We call a tub a tosh.

   1905, H. A. Vachell, Hill, section I

   1 more example

   A ‘tosh’ pan... is also provided.

   1881, Leathes in C.E. Pascoe, Everyday Life in our Public Schools, ii. 20

5. derogatoryslanguncountableball gamesEasy bowling

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

   1898 June 25, Tit-Bits, 252/3

6. UKhumorousslanguncountableUsed as a form of address.

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

   1954, E. Hyams, Stories & Cream, section 175

present singular third person toshes · participle present toshing · participle past toshed · past toshed · alternative tush

1. UKobsoleteslangTo steal copper, particularly from ship hulls

   Toshing, a cant word for stealing copper sheathing from vessels' bottoms, or from dock-yard stores.

2. UKslanguncommonTo search for valuables in sewers

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

   1974, J. Aiken, Midnight is Place, vi. 180

3. UKarchaic school slangTo use a tosh-pan, either to wash, to splash, or to "bath"

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

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

   1 more example

   ‘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.

   1883, J.P. Groves, From Cadet to Captain, iii. 227

comparative tosher · superlative toshest

1. ScotlandobsoleteTight.

   Tosh, tight, neat.

   1776, D. Herd, Ancient & Modern Scottish Songs

2. ScotlandNeat, clean; tidy, trim.

   I gang ay fou clean and fou tosh As a' the neighbours can tell.

   1794, J. Ritson, Scottish Songs, I. 99

3. ScotlandComfortable, agreeable; friendly, intimate.

   We were a very tosh and agreeable company.

   1821, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, 10 4

comparative more tosh · superlative most tosh

1. ScotlandToshly: neatly, tidily

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

   1808, J. Mayne, Siller Gun, i. 20

present singular third person toshes · participle present toshing · participle past toshed · past toshed

1. ScotlandTo make ‘tosh’: to tidy, to trim.

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

   1826 November, J. Wilson, Noctes Ambrosianae, xxix, in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, 788

plural toshes · alternative tush

1. UKcountableobsoleteslangA half-crown coin; its value

   Here's a tosh to buy yourself some beer.

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

   1 more example

   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, Eric Partridge, The Routledge Dictionary of Historical Slang

2. UKcountableobsoleteslangA crown coin; its value

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

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

   1 more example

   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.

   1859, J.C. Hotten, A Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words

3. UKarchaicslanguncountableAny money, particularly pre-decimalization British coinage

1. abbreviationacronymAcronym of The Orthopedic Specialty Hospital.

1. A surname.

alternative Tash

1. A Hassidic community
2. abbreviationellipsisEllipsis of Kiryas Tosh: a neighbourhood of Boisbriand, Quebec, Canada.
3. Synonym of Nyírtass (Nyírtass); A village in Hungary

   Synonyms: Nyírtass