Tosh vs Tosher - What's the difference?
tosh | tosher |
Copper; items made of copper
*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.
Valuables retrieved from sewers and drains
*1974 , J. Aiken, Midnight is Place , v. 164
*:I am present engaged in fishing for tosh in the sewers of Blastburn.
(chiefly, British, slang, uncountable) Rubbish, trash, (now) especially in the sense of nonsense, bosh, balderdash
*1892 October 26 , Oxford University Magazine , 26/1
*:To think what I've gone through to hear that man! Frightful tosh it'll be, too.
* 1911 , , The New Machiavelli , ch. 5,
:1997 , , (w, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone) , iv
::‘Took yeh from the ruined house myself, on Dumbledore’s orders. Brought yeh ter this lot...’
::‘Load of old tosh ,’ said Uncle Vernon.
A bath or foot pan
*1881 , Leathes in C.E. Pascoe, Everyday Life in our Public Schools , ii. 20
*:A ‘tosh ’ pan... is also provided.
*1905 , H. A. Vachell, Hill , i
*:We call a tub a tosh .
(cricket, slang, disparaging, uncountable) Easy bowling
*1898 June 25 , Tit-Bits , 252/3
*:Among the recent neologisms of the cricket field is ‘tosh ’, which means bowling of contemptible easiness.
Used as a form of address .
*1954 , E. Hyams, Stories & Cream , 175
*:'Ere]], tosh , you bin at [[Chatham, Cha'ham?
To steal copper, particularly from ship hulls
*1867 , W. H. Smyth, Sailor's Word-book
*Toshing , a cant word for stealing copper sheathing from vessels' bottoms, or from dock-yard stores.
To search for valuables in sewers
*1974', J. Aiken, ''Midnight is Place vi. 180 You tend to the ' toshing , let Mester Hobday tend to the dealing.
To use a tosh-pan, either to wash, to splash, or to "bath"
*1883 , J.P. Groves, From Cadet to Captain , iii. 227
*:‘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.
*1903 , J. S. Farmer & al., Slang , VII. 171/1
*:He toshed his house beak by mistake, and got three hundred.
(Scotland, obsolete) Tight.
*1776 , D. Herd, Ancient & Modern Scottish Songs
*:Tosh , tight, neat.
(Scotland) Neat, clean; tidy, trim.
*1794 , J. Ritson, Scottish Songs , I. 99
*:I gang ay fou clean and fou tosh
*:As a' the neighbours can tell.
(Scotland) Comfortable, agreeable; friendly, intimate.
*1821 , Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine , 10 4
*:We were a very tosh and agreeable company.
(Scotland) Toshly: neatly, tidily
*1808 , J. Mayne, Siller Gun , i. 20
*:Shouther your arms!—O! had them tosh on, And not athraw!
(Scotland) To make ‘tosh’: to tidy, to trim.
*1826 November , J. Wilson, Noctes Ambrosianae'', xxix, in ''Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine , 788
*:Hoo]] she wad try to tosh up ... her [[breast, breest.
A half-crown coin; its value
*1933 , (George Orwell), (Down and Out in Paris and London) , xxix
*:‘’Ere]] s for the trousers, one and a tanner for the boots, and a [['og, ’og for the cap and scarf. That’s seven bob.’
*1961 , Eric Partridge, The Routledge Dictionary of Historical Slang
*:tush' or '''tosh'''. Money: Cockney: late C.19–20. Ex]]: ' tusheroon ... But ) are manifest corruptions of Lingua Franca [[madza caroon, MADZA CAROON.
:1961 , J. Maclaren-Ross, Doomsday Book , i. v. 63
::Here's a tosh to buy yourself some beer.
A crown coin; its value
*1859 ,
*:Half-a-crown'' is known as an (alderman), (half a bull), , 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) .
*1912 , J.W. Horsley, I Remember , xii. 253
*:‘Tush ’, for money, would be an abbreviation of ‘tusheroon’, which in old cant, and also in tinker dialect, signified a crown.
Any money, particularly pre-decimalization British coinage
(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)
As a proper noun tosh
is .As a noun tosher is
(historical|cant) a thief who steals the copper siding from the bottoms of vessels, particularly in or along the thames.As an adjective tosher is
(tosh).tosh
English
Etymology 1
From 19th-century British thieves cant, of uncertain origin. Sense of nonsense possibly influenced by attested from 15th century.Alternative forms
* (nonsense) tushNoun
- 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 .