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Tosh

//tɒʃ// adj, adv, name, noun, verb, slang

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Tight. Scotland, obsolete

    "Tosh, tight, neat."

  2. 2
    Neat, clean; tidy, trim. Scotland

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

  3. 3
    Comfortable, agreeable; friendly, intimate. Scotland

    "We were a very tosh and agreeable company."

Adverb
  1. 1
    Toshly: neatly, tidily Scotland

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

Proper Noun
  1. 1
    Acronym of The Orthopedic Specialty Hospital. abbreviation, acronym, alt-of
  2. 2
    A surname.
  3. 3
    A Hassidic community
  4. 4
    Ellipsis of Kiryas Tosh: a neighbourhood of Boisbriand, Quebec, Canada. abbreviation, alt-of, ellipsis
  5. 5
    Synonym of Nyírtass (Nyírtass); A village in Hungary
Noun
  1. 1
    Copper; items made of copper. British, obsolete, slang, uncountable

    "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. 2
    A half-crown coin; its value British, countable, obsolete, 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."

  3. 3
    pretentious or silly talk or writing wordnet
  4. 4
    Valuables retrieved from drains and sewers. British, rare, slang, uncountable

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

  5. 5
    A crown coin; its value British, countable, obsolete, slang

    "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."

Show 5 more definitions
  1. 6
    Rubbish, trash, (now especially) nonsense, bosh, balderdash British, slang, uncountable

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

  2. 7
    Any money, particularly pre-decimalization British coinage British, archaic, slang, uncountable
  3. 8
    A bath or foot pan UK, countable

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

  4. 9
    Easy bowling derogatory, slang, uncountable

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

  5. 10
    Used as a form of address. UK, humorous, slang, uncountable

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

Verb
  1. 1
    To steal copper, particularly from ship hulls British, obsolete, slang

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

  2. 2
    To make ‘tosh’: to tidy, to trim. Scotland

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

  3. 3
    To search for valuables in sewers British, slang, uncommon

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

  4. 4
    To use a tosh-pan, either to wash, to splash, or to "bath" UK

    "‘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."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From 19th-century British thieves' cant, of uncertain origin. Perhaps from *tarsh, a metathetic alteration of trash; or from toss. Sense of nonsense possibly influenced by tush (“nonsense! tsk tsk!”) attested from 15th century.

Etymology 2

From 19th-century British thieves' cant, of uncertain origin. Perhaps from *tarsh, a metathetic alteration of trash; or from toss. Sense of nonsense possibly influenced by tush (“nonsense! tsk tsk!”) attested from 15th century.

Etymology 3

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

Etymology 4

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

Etymology 5

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

Etymology 6

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.

Etymology 7

From Yiddish טאהש (Tosh), from Hebrew טאהש (Tash).

See also for "tosh"

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