joshing

joshing is the present participle and gerund of josh.

Meaning of josh

josh (third-person singular simple present joshes, present participle joshing, simple past and past participle joshed)

(transitive) To tease someone in a kindly or friendly fashion.
- "My dear Polly. I welcome criticism, but this is mere——"
  Lady Wetherby stroked his coat sleeve fondly.
  "Never mind, Algie, I was only joshing you, precious.[…]"1915, Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, Uneasy Money, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton and Company, published 17 March 1916, →OCLC, page 171
(intransitive) To make or exchange good-natured jokes.
- We are old friends, did I not tell you? So I may, what you Americans call, josh with him.1902, Jack London, chapter XIV, in A Daughter of the Snows

joshing (countable and uncountable, plural joshings)

Good-natured teasing.
- He weaved away down the street, amidst the jovial joshings of the miners, to which he retorted with bibulous good nature.1936 December, Robert E. Howard, “The Vultures of Wahpeton”, in Smashing Novels Magazine
Synonyms:

bantering, ribbing

plural	joshings

What does joshing mean?: Joshing means good-natured teasing.
What is joshing the present participle and gerund of?: Joshing is the present participle and gerund of josh.
What part of speech is joshing?: Joshing is a noun.
What is the plural of joshing?: The plural of joshing is joshings.

Adapted from Wiktionary: joshing (page history and authors); josh (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “joshing.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/joshing. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.