Scavenger vs Tosher - What's the difference?
scavenger | tosher |
(obsolete) A street sweeper.
Someone who scavenges, especially one who searches through rubbish for food or useful things.
An animal that feeds on decaying matter such as carrion.
(chemistry) A substance used to remove impurities from the air or from a solution.
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English agent nouns
English twice-borrowed terms
(historical, cant) A thief who steals the copper siding from the bottoms of vessels, particularly in or along the Thames.
*1859 , J.C. Hotten, A dictionary of modern slang, cant, and vulgar words used at the present day, preceded by a history of cant and vulgar language, with glossaries of two secret languages, by a London antiquary
*:Toshers , men who steal copper from ships' bottoms in the Thames.
A scavenger of valuables lost in the sewers, particularly those of London during the Victorian Age.
*1851 , H. Mayhew, London labour and the London poor , II. 150/2
*: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.
(tosh)
