tosh

noun

1. (British, obsolete, slang, uncountable)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.”

2. (British, rare, slang, uncountable)Valuables retrieved from drains and sewers.

   “I am present engaged in fishing for tosh in the sewers of Blastburn.”

3. (British, slang, uncountable)Rubbish, trash, (now especially) nonsense, bosh, balderdash

   “To think what I've gone through to hear that man! Frightful tosh it'll be, too.”

   “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.”

   “‘Took yeh from the ruined house myself, on Dumbledore’s orders. Brought yeh ter this lot...’ ‘Load of old tosh,’ said Uncle Vernon.”

4. (UK, countable)A bath or foot pan

   “A ‘tosh’ pan... is also provided.”

   “We call a tub a tosh.”

5. (derogatory, slang, uncountable)Easy bowling

   “Among the recent neologisms of the cricket field is ‘tosh’, which means bowling of contemptible easiness.”

6. (UK, humorous, slang, uncountable)Used as a form of address.

   “'Ere, tosh, you bin at Cha'ham?”

7. (British, countable, obsolete, slang)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.”

   “Here's a tosh to buy yourself some beer.”

8. (British, countable, obsolete, slang)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.”

   “‘Tush’, for money, would be an abbreviation of ‘tusheroon’, which in old cant, and also in tinker dialect, signified a crown.”

9. (British, archaic, slang, uncountable)Any money, particularly pre-decimalization British coinage

verb

1. (British, 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. (British, slang, uncommon)To search for valuables in sewers

   “You tend to the toshing, let Mester Hobday tend to the dealing.”

3. (UK)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 about three gallons of water) over the wretched lad's head.”

   “He toshed his house beak by mistake, and got three hundred.”

4. (Scotland)To make ‘tosh’: to tidy, to trim.

   “Hoo she wad try to tosh up... her breest.”

adj

1. (Scotland, obsolete)Tight.

   “Tosh, tight, neat.”

2. (Scotland)Neat, clean; tidy, trim.

   “I gang ay fou clean and fou tosh As a' the neighbours can tell.”

3. (Scotland)Comfortable, agreeable; friendly, intimate.

   “We were a very tosh and agreeable company.”

adv

1. (Scotland)Toshly: neatly, tidily

   “Shouther your arms!—O! had them tosh on, And not athraw!”

name

1. (abbreviation, acronym, alt-of)Acronym of The Orthopedic Specialty Hospital.
2. A surname.
3. A Hassidic community
4. (abbreviation, alt-of, ellipsis)Ellipsis of Kiryas Tosh: a neighbourhood of Boisbriand, Quebec, Canada.
5. Synonym of Nyírtass (Nyírtass); A village in Hungary