zhoosh
More pronunciations (2)Fewer pronunciations
England/ʒʊʃ/Northern Ireland/ʒʉʃ/
zhoosh verb: to tweak, finesse or improve (something); to make more appealing or exciting. Usually with up.
Verb (1)
zhoosh (third-person singular simple present zhooshes, present participle zhooshing, simple past and past participle zhooshed)
- To tweak, finesse or improve (something); to make more appealing or exciting. Usually with up.
- Mostly the words are dusted off and brought out when we wish to zhoosh up the conversation, to announce a particular delight in our queenly style.1988, Neil Bartlett, Who Was That Man?, →ISBN, page 82
- Mr. Warburton, a volunteer, swept into the group’s headquarters in the Hotel Pennsylvania, a team of hair stylists in tow, his objective to “zhoosh up” the women’s looks, he said.2009 May 27, Ruth La Ferla, “To Dress for Success, You Must Trust His Eye”, in The New York Times
Adjective
zhoosh (comparative more zhoosh, superlative most zhoosh)
Noun (1)
zhoosh (usually uncountable, plural zhooshes)
- Style, glamor (especially in regard to clothing).
- Thank you for your happiness and your eternal Bona-ness and zhoosh.2016 June 7, Tilda Swinton, quotee, “Tilda Swinton Shared A Moving Tribute To David Bowie At The CFDAs”, in Elle
- I grew up in a rain-lashed industrial town near London. Glamour and excitement were thin on the ground. The Swinging Sixties had yet to swing. No telly, no luxuries, no zhoosh. Except at Christmas time. Once a year, the local department store would festoon the window displays with twinkly lights...2020 June 18, Simon Doonan, “Let's Return to the Exuberance of Window Shopping”, in Town & Country
- Synonyms:
- dash, flamboyance, panache, swagger, verve
Verb (2)
zhoosh (third-person singular simple present zhooshes, present participle zhooshing, simple past and past participle zhooshed)
- To blend ingredients together using an electric food mixer.
- Throw it all in a blender and zhoosh it until it's creamy smooth.
- Synonyms:
- blitz
Noun (2)
zhoosh (plural zhooshes)
- The action of mixing ingredients using an electric food mixer; a pulse of mixing.
- Give the eggs and milk a quick zhoosh in the blender.
Examples of zhoosh in a sentence
- That said, if Sue is after a little zhoosh, she might want to consider how she dresses her veg.2021 December 21, Anna Berrill, “Final magic touches to zhoosh your Christmas lunch”, in The Guardian:
- Beyond the zhoosh, spangle and splendour, there’s substance to the development too.2022 January 21, “The Monocle Minute”, in Monocle, archived from the original on 24 Jan 2025:
Synonyms of zhoosh
Forms of zhoosh
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | zhooshes |
| present participle | zhooshing |
| past participle | zhooshed |
| past | zhooshed |
| alternative form | jooj |
| alternative form | joosh |
| alternative form | joozh |
| alternative form | juj |
| alternative form | jush |
| alternative form | juzh |
| alternative form | tszuj |
| alternative form | zhoozh |
| alternative form | zhush |
| alternative form | zhuzh |
| Adjective | |
| comparative | more zhoosh |
| superlative | most zhoosh |
Origin of zhoosh
UK 1960s. Unclear origin; one explanation is that it was borrowed from Angloromani yuser (“clean”, verb) and yusher (“clear”, verb), from Angloromani yus-, yuz-, yuzh- (“clean”) and yush- (“clear”), from Romani žuž-, už- (“clean”, adjective) (also compare Hindi उज्ज्वल (ujjval, “bright”)), but this has been seen as problematic. Another theory is that the term is instead an "expressive formation" similar to whoosh and swish. The South African sense reportedly comes from a regional pronunciation of "Jewish", alluding to the high reputation of Jewish tailors at the time, but this has also been considered unlikely. All senses originated around the same time, with the first attributed use of the noun in 1968 and the verb in 1970.
Onomatopoeic, from the sound of a blender.
Words formed from zhoosh
Words that rhyme with zhoosh
5 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about zhoosh
- What does zhoosh mean?
- Zhoosh means to tweak, finesse or improve (something); to make more appealing or exciting. Usually with up.
- How do you use zhoosh in a sentence?
- That said, if Sue is after a little zhoosh, she might want to consider how she dresses her veg.
- What part of speech is zhoosh?
- Zhoosh can be a verb, an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce zhoosh?
- Zhoosh is pronounced /ʒʊʃ/ (England).
- What is the past tense of zhoosh?
- The past tense of zhoosh is zhooshed.
Words near zhoosh in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: zhoosh (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-zhoosh.wav.
Cite this entry: “zhoosh.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/zhoosh. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.