Word.ws English Dictionary

toshes

toshes is the plural of tosh in its countable senses.

toshes is the third-person singular simple present indicative of tosh.

Meaning of tosh

Verb (1)

tosh (third-person singular simple present toshes, present participle toshing, simple past and past participle toshed)

  1. (UK, obsolete, slang) To steal copper, particularly from ship hulls
    • Toshing, a cant word for stealing copper sheathing from vessels' bottoms, or from dock-yard stores.
  2. (UK, slang, uncommon) 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
  3. (UK, archaic school slang) 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

Verb (2)

tosh (third-person singular simple present toshes, present participle toshing, simple past and past participle toshed)

  1. (Scotland) To make ‘tosh’: to tidy, to trim.
    • Hoo she wad try to tosh up... her breest.1826 November, J. Wilson, Noctes Ambrosianae, xxix, in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, 788

See all 20 meanings of tosh

Phrases with toshes

Questions about toshes

What is toshes the plural of?
Toshes is the plural of tosh in its countable senses.

Words near toshes in the dictionary

  1. tosher
  2. tosheroon
  3. tosheroons
  4. toshers
  5. toshery
  6. toshes
  7. toshes up
  8. toshest
  9. Toshiba
  10. Toshibas
  11. toshier

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: toshes (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.

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