Word.ws English Dictionary

on the bash

on the bash prepositional phrase: working as a sex worker.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (slang) Working as a sex worker.
    • From the hours you keep […] I'd say you were on the bash.1959, Streetwalker, page 58
    • A quick smile played around her lips. "It's from Bondi Beach. Right near Sydney. In Australia, where I'm from. My mom always said I was conceived on that beach, so she gave me that name. She was a young girl then, working square, before she went on the bash. All she could tell me about my dad is...2001, Andrew Vachss, False Allegations, →ISBN
    Synonyms:
    on the game
  2. (slang) On an alcoholic drinking binge.
    • In the evidence he gave before the committee he said that 50 complaints a week were received by his authority. When asked what they were he said late delivery, dirty bottles, wrong change, milk bottles in the wrong place, changing the caps on the tops of bottles, delivery on the wrong days, and...1967, Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives [of New Zealand]; Mr McCready, in debate about the Milk Bill, page 3917
    • […] cooked lunch, three o'clock smoko, a big dinner and then supper. We always kept a man cook, and you'd never believe how we got them. At the hotel in Wanaka they'd always be getting chefs who were alcoholic; they'd work till they had enough money to go on the bash, then they'd be sacked, so the...1979, Christine Hunt, Something in the Hills: Yesterdays in Central Otago, page 34

Examples of on the bash in a sentence

  • She was a young girl then, working square, before she went on the bash.2001, Andrew Vachss, False Allegations, →ISBN:
  • Once they had lost the first flush of youth, started to look like they were on the bash, he saw to it that they were relegated.2008, Martina Cole, The Business: A compelling suspense thriller of danger and destruction, →ISBN:
  • I'd sort of guessed that they were on the bash, […]2010, Paul O'Grady, The Devil Rides Out, →ISBN, page 243:

Synonyms of on the bash

Questions about on the bash

What does on the bash mean?
On the bash means working as a sex worker.
How do you use on the bash in a sentence?
She was a young girl then, working square, before she went on the bash.
What part of speech is on the bash?
On the bash is a prepositional phrase.

Words near on the bash in the dictionary

  1. on the anvil
  2. on the back burner
  3. on the back foot
  4. on the back of
  5. on the ball
  6. on the bash
  7. on the basis of
  8. on the batter
  9. on the beach
  10. on the beat
  11. on the bench

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: on the bash (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.

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