Word.ws English Dictionary

stoush

/staʊʃ/

stoush noun: a fight, an argument.

Noun

stoush (plural stoushes)

  1. (Australia, New Zealand, informal) A fight, an argument.
    • Barry explained that his friend wasn′t drunk, he′d been in a stoush, had a ding on his head and was covered in money.1996, Elizabeth Knox, Glamour and the Sea, Victoria University Press, New Zealand, page 166
    • Now Henry knows dead cert he′s in for a stoush, but Snake-hips says he should go with him, and out on Nymagee-street Henry Lawson refuses a twenty-pound note, and the two men shake and Henry accepts the next billiards game, doubles with Snake-hips (who plays even worse than Henry), the Minister for...2006, Pip Wilson, Faces in the Street: Louisa and Henry Lawson and the Castlereagh Street Push, page 200

Verb

stoush (third-person singular simple present stoushes, present participle stoushing, simple past and past participle stoushed)

  1. (Australia, informal) To fight; to argue.
    • Wot price ole Ginger Mick? ′E′s done a break— / Gone to the flamin′ war to stoush the foe.1916, C. J. Dennis, The Call of Stoush, The Moods of Ginger Mick, 2009, Sydney University Press, page 15
    • The two business moguls have stoushed over rights to televise rugby union, whose marketability has greatly risen since institution of the World Cup in 1987.1999, Marion Halligan, Marlene Mathews, A Sporting Nation: Celebrating Australia′s Sporting Life, page 121

Examples of stoush in a sentence

  • She and Anna used to reproduce Veronica′s stoushes with Pat, conducted with gusto over the fence but never brought into the confining space of either house where they might smoulder and flare.2004, Jay Verney, Percussion, University of Queensland Press, page 151:
  • There was a lot of corporate stoushing and things said that people didn′t like.2008, Matthew Kidman, Alex Feher, Master CEOs: Secrets of Australia′s Leading CEOs, published 2012, unnumbered page:

Forms of stoush

Noun
pluralstoushes
Verb
third-person singular presentstoushes
present participlestoushing
past participlestoushed
paststoushed

Origin of stoush

Possibly from stash. Australian from 1893; Boer War military slang. Also may be derived from stushie or stooshie, a Scottish term for a commotion, rumpus, or row.

Words that rhyme with stoush

Questions about stoush

What does stoush mean?
Stoush means a fight, an argument.
How do you use stoush in a sentence?
She and Anna used to reproduce Veronica′s stoushes with Pat, conducted with gusto over the fence but never brought into the confining space of either house where they might smoulder and flare.
What part of speech is stoush?
Stoush can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce stoush?
Stoush is pronounced /staʊʃ/.
What is the plural of stoush?
The plural of stoush is stoushes.

Words near stoush in the dictionary

  1. Stourport
  2. Stourport-on-Severn
  3. stours
  4. Stourton
  5. Stourton with Gasper
  6. stoush
  7. stoushed
  8. stoushes
  9. stoushing
  10. stout
  11. stout-hearted

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stoush (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:

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

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