toshing

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