tosh
UK/tɒʃ/US/tɑʃ/
tosh noun: copper; items made of copper.
Noun (1)
tosh (countable and uncountable, plural toshes)
- Copper; items made of copper.
- 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.[1851, Henry Mayhew, “Of the Sewer-hunters”, in London Labour and the London Poor; […], volume II (The London Street-folk. Book the Second.), London: [Griffin, Bohn, and Company], →OCLC, page 150...
- Valuables retrieved from drains and sewers.
- I am present engaged in fishing for tosh in the sewers of Blastburn.1974, Joan Aiken, Midnight is a Place, page 164
- Rubbish, trash, (now especially) nonsense, bosh, balderdash
- To think what I've gone through to hear that man! Frightful tosh it'll be, too.1892 October 26, Oxford University Magazine, number 26/1
- Perhaps it helped a man into Parliament, Parliament still being a confused retrogressive corner in the world where lawyers and suchlike sheltered themselves from the onslaughts of common-sense behind a fog of Latin and Greek and twaddle and tosh.1911, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, chapter 5, in The New Machiavelli, London: John Lane; The Bodley Head […], →OCLC
- A bath or foot pan
- A ‘tosh’ pan... is also provided.1881, Leathes in C.E. Pascoe, Everyday Life in our Public Schools, ii. 20
- We call a tub a tosh.1905, H. A. Vachell, Hill, section I
- Easy bowling
- Among the recent neologisms of the cricket field is ‘tosh’, which means bowling of contemptible easiness.1898 June 25, Tit-Bits, 252/3
- Used as a form of address.
- 'Ere, tosh, you bin at Cha'ham?1954, E. Hyams, Stories & Cream, section 175
Verb (1)
tosh (third-person singular simple present toshes, present participle toshing, simple past and past participle toshed)
- To steal copper, particularly from ship hulls
- Toshing, a cant word for stealing copper sheathing from vessels' bottoms, or from dock-yard stores.
- To search for valuables in sewers
- You tend to the toshing, let Mester Hobday tend to the dealing.1974, J. Aiken, Midnight is Place, vi. 180
- To use a tosh-pan, either to wash, to splash, or to "bath"
- ‘Toshing’ was the name given to a punishment inflicted by the cadets on any one of their number who made himself obnoxious. The victim, dressed in full uniform, was forced to run the gauntlet of his brother cadets, who, as he passed, emptied the contents of their ‘tosh-cans’ (small baths holding...1883, J.P. Groves, From Cadet to Captain, iii. 227
- He toshed his house beak by mistake, and got three hundred.1903, J. S. Farmer et al., Slang, VII. 171/1
Adjective
tosh (comparative tosher, superlative toshest)
- Tight.
- Tosh, tight, neat.1776, D. Herd, Ancient & Modern Scottish Songs
- Neat, clean; tidy, trim.
- I gang ay fou clean and fou tosh
As a' the neighbours can tell.1794, J. Ritson, Scottish Songs, I. 99
- I gang ay fou clean and fou tosh
- Comfortable, agreeable; friendly, intimate.
- We were a very tosh and agreeable company.1821, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, 10 4
Adverb
tosh (comparative more tosh, superlative most tosh)
Verb (2)
tosh (third-person singular simple present toshes, present participle toshing, simple past and past participle toshed)
Noun (2)
tosh (countable and uncountable, plural toshes)
- A half-crown coin; its value
- tush or tosh. Money: Cockney: late C.19–20. Ex: tusheroon... But H. errs, I believe: he should mean half-a-crown, for tusheroon and its C.20 variant tossaroon (2s. 6d.) are manifest corruptions of Lingua Franca MADZA CAROON.1961, Eric Partridge, The Routledge Dictionary of Historical Slang
- Here's a tosh to buy yourself some beer.1961, J. Maclaren-Ross, Doomsday Book, i. v. 63
- A crown coin; its value
- Half-a-crown is known as an alderman, half a bull, half a tusheroon, and a madza caroon; whilst a crown piece, or five shillings, may be called either a bull, or a caroon, or a cartwheel, or a coachwheel, or a thick-un, or a tusheroon.1859, J.C. Hotten, A Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words
- ‘Tush’, for money, would be an abbreviation of ‘tusheroon’, which in old cant, and also in tinker dialect, signified a crown.1912, J.W. Horsley, I Remember, xii. 253
- Any money, particularly pre-decimalization British coinage
Proper noun (1) capitalized: Tosh
Tosh
- A surname.
Proper noun (2) capitalized: Tosh
Tosh
- A Hassidic community
- Ellipsis of Kiryas Tosh: a neighbourhood of Boisbriand, Quebec, Canada.
- Synonym of Nyírtass (Nyírtass); A village in Hungary
- Synonyms:
- Nyírtass
Proper noun (3) capitalized: TOSH
TOSH
- Acronym of The Orthopedic Specialty Hospital.
Examples of tosh in a sentence
- Brought yeh ter this lot...’ ‘Load of old tosh,’ said Uncle Vernon.1997 June 26, J. K. Rowling [pseudonym; Joanne Rowling], chapter 4, in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Harry Potter; 1), London...
- ‘Toshing’ was the name given to a punishment inflicted by the cadets on any one of their number who made himself obnoxious.1883, J.P. Groves, From Cadet to Captain, iii. 227:
Synonyms of tosh
Forms of tosh
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | toshes |
| alternative form | tush |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | toshes |
| present participle | toshing |
| past participle | toshed |
| past | toshed |
| Adjective | |
| comparative | tosher |
| superlative | toshest |
| Adverb | |
| comparative | more tosh |
| superlative | most tosh |
| Proper noun | |
| alternative form | Tash |
Origin of tosh
From 19th-century British thieves' cant, of uncertain origin. Perhaps from *tarsh, a metathetic alteration of trash; or from toss. Sense of nonsense possibly influenced by tush (“nonsense! tsk tsk!”) attested from 15th century.
Compare Old French tonce (“shorn, clipped”) and English tonsure.
From 19th-century British slang tosheroon, from or alongside tusheroon, of uncertain derivation from British slang caroon (“crown, a 5-shilling silver coin”), from Sabir and (originally) Italian corona (“crown”). The term was either derived from or influenced by madza caroon, the British slang for the Sabir and Italian mezzo corona (“half-crown”), possibly under influence from tosh (“copper items; valuables”) above or from the half-crown's value of two shillings & sixpence.
Words formed from tosh
Phrases with tosh
Words that rhyme with tosh
Questions about tosh
- What does tosh mean?
- Tosh means copper; items made of copper.
- How do you use tosh in a sentence?
- Brought yeh ter this lot...’ ‘Load of old tosh,’ said Uncle Vernon.
- What part of speech is tosh?
- Tosh can be a noun, a verb, an adjective or an adverb.
- How do you pronounce tosh?
- Tosh is pronounced /tɒʃ/ (UK).
- What is the plural of tosh?
- The plural of tosh is toshes.
Words near tosh in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: tosh (page history and authors); Tosh (page history and authors); TOSH (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-tosh.ogg.
Cite this entry: “tosh.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tosh. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.