Etymology From 19th-century British thieves' cant, of uncertain origin. Perhaps from *tarsh, a metathetic alteration of trash; or from toss. Sense of nonsense possibly influenced by tush (“nonsense! tsk tsk!”) attested from 15th century.
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.[1851, Henry Mayhew, “Of the Sewer-hunters”, in London Labour and the London Poor; […], volume II (The London Street-folk. Book the Second.), London: [Griffin, Bohn, and Company], →OCLC, page 150, column 2:
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UK, Rare, Slang Valuables retrieved from drains and sewers.
I am present engaged in fishing for tosh in the sewers of Blastburn.1974, Joan Aiken, Midnight is a Place, page 164:
To think what I've gone through to hear that man! Frightful tosh it'll be, too.1892 October 26, Oxford University Magazine, number 26/1:
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.1911, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, chapter 5, in The New Machiavelli, London: John Lane; The Bodley Head […], →OCLC:
1 more example
‘Took yeh from the ruined house myself, on Dumbledore’s orders. Brought yeh ter this lot...’ ‘Load of old tosh,’ said Uncle Vernon.1997 June 26, J. K. Rowling [pseudonym; Joanne Rowling], chapter 4, in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Harry Potter; 1), London: Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN:
Etymology From 19th-century British thieves' cant, of uncertain origin. Perhaps from *tarsh, a metathetic alteration of trash; or from toss. Sense of nonsense possibly influenced by tush (“nonsense! tsk tsk!”) attested from 15th century.
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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.
You tend to the toshing, let Mester Hobday tend to the dealing.1974, J. Aiken, Midnight is Place, vi. 180:
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UK To use a tosh-pan, either to wash, to splash, or to "bath"
Archaic school slang
‘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.1883, J.P. Groves, From Cadet to Captain, iii. 227:
He toshed his house beak by mistake, and got three hundred.1903, J. S. Farmer et al., Slang, VII. 171/1:
Hoo she wad try to tosh up... her breest.1826 November, J. Wilson, Noctes Ambrosianae, xxix, in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, 788
tosh
noun
Etymology From 19th-century British slang tosheroon, from or alongside tusheroon, of uncertain derivation from British slang caroon (“crown, a 5-shilling silver coin”), from Sabir and (originally) Italian corona (“crown”). The term was either derived from or influenced by madza caroon, the British slang for the Sabir and Italian mezzo corona (“half-crown”), possibly under influence from tosh (“copper items; valuables”) above or from the half-crown's value of two shillings & sixpence.
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.1961, Eric Partridge, The Routledge Dictionary of Historical Slang:
Here's a tosh to buy yourself some beer.1961, J. Maclaren-Ross, Doomsday Book, i. v. 63:
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.1859, J.C. Hotten, A Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words:
‘Tush’, for money, would be an abbreviation of ‘tusheroon’, which in old cant, and also in tinker dialect, signified a crown.1912, J.W. Horsley, I Remember, xii. 253:
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UK, Archaic, Slang Any money, particularly pre-decimalization British coinage