potch

/pɒt͡ʃ/

potch verb: to thrust. Also the obsolete form of poach.

Verb (1)

potch (third-person singular simple present potches, present participle potching, simple past and past participle potched)

(intransitive, obsolete) To thrust.
- I'll potch at him some way, / Or wrath or craft may get him.c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
(obsolete, transitive) To trample.
- Afterwards, the second pasture should be treated in the same manner, and the rest in course, feeding the wettest pasture after the driest, that the soil may be less potched.1837, John Orville Taylor, The Farmer′s School Book, page 116
- The said William Aitken, being of new solemnly sworn, &c., depones he is a Burgess of Hawick, and had the property of a house which he now liferents, the fee being disponed to his son-in-law, Bailie Robert Scot, for the use of his son William, his daughter, Bailie Scot's wife, having paid the price...1898, R. S. Craig, Adam Laing, The Hawick Tradition of 1514: The Town's Common Flag and Seal, page 240

potch (uncountable)

(Australia) A type of rough opal without colour, and therefore not worth selling.
- Discusses the difference between potch opal and common opal. The terms are often used synonymously, but this writer shows that potch is found only in association with precious opal and differs from common opal in its structure quite substantially.1982, Gemmological Association of Great Britain, The Journal of Gemmology, Volume 18, page 432
- She set them down with precision, she set them down with the same kind of care that Bernie took when he and his underlings cut opal, or when they polished the rough stones, or when they bonded opal veneer on to potch.1996, Janette Turner Hospital, Oyster, paperback edition, Virago Press, page 75

potch (third-person singular simple present potches, present participle potching, simple past and past participle potched)

potch (plural potches)

(Judaism) A slap or spank. Alternative spellings include patsh, potsh.
- The pedagogical benefit to which the rebbe was referring and which Pinchas had “missed” was corporal punishment — the potches, hits or smacks — which teachers in this school regularly mete out, even to their 5- and 6-year-old students.2012 January 24, William Kolbrener, “The Perils Of ‘Potch Culture’”, in New York Jewish Week, New York, NY, archived from the original on 25 Jun 2025
- With a heavily-accented Yiddish he responded matter-of-factly, “I give patsh”. A bit taken aback, our instructor followed up by asking that rebbi what he did when his students had done something right. Surprised by the question, the older man responded, “I don’t give patsh.”2026 March 12, Rabbi Akiva Males, “Were the Ba’alei Tosafos Familiar with Aesop or Buddhism?”, in The Seforim Blog, archived from the original on 19 Mar 2026, I – The European Cheder Rebbi and the...

Potch

potch is also the obsolete form of poach.

Verb
third-person singular present	potches
present participle	potching
past participle	potched
past	potched
Noun
plural	potches

From Old French pocher (“to poke”); akin to poach.

From Yiddish פּאַטש (patsh, “slap”).

What does potch mean?: Potch means to thrust.
What part of speech is potch?: Potch can be a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce potch?: Potch is pronounced /pɒt͡ʃ/.
What is the past tense of potch?: The past tense of potch is potched.

Adapted from Wiktionary: potch (page history and authors); Potch (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

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-potch.ogg.

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