Tosher

adj, noun

adj, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A thief who steals the copper siding from the bottoms of vessels, particularly in or along the Thames. historical

    "Toshers, men who steal copper from ships' bottoms in the Thames."

  2. 2
    A member of the Tosh Hassidic community
  3. 3
    A scavenger of valuables lost in the sewers, particularly those of London during the Victorian Age. historical

    "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."

Adjective
  1. 1
    comparative form of tosh: more tosh comparative, form-of
  2. 2
    Pertaining to the Tosh Hassidic community

Synonyms

All synonyms
admonishbadmouthbalderdashballoon juicebaloneybaloney

Example

More examples

"Toshers, men who steal copper from ships' bottoms in the Thames."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From 19th-century British thieves' cant tosh (“copper; items made of copper”) + -er (“one who uses or acquires”).

Etymology 2

See tosh.

Etymology 3

From Tosh + -er. From Hebrew טאהש.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.