| 释义 |
▪ I. tosher1 Thieves' Cant.|ˈtɒʃə(r)|
a. A Thames thief who purloins copper sheathing from the bottoms of vessels in the river or from the docks.
1859Slang Dict., Toshers, men who steal copper from ships' bottoms in the Thames.
b. One who searches for valuable refuse in drains and sewers.
a1852H. Mayhew London Labour (1861) 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. 1870D. J. Kirwan Palace & Hovel xxi. 331 These men..search the sewers..for..whatever is of value... They are called ‘Toshers’ or ‘Shore-men’. 1974J. Aiken Midnight is Place v. 154 Gudgeon's your mate, boy, he's my other tosher.
So ˈtoshing, the practice of a ‘tosher’.
1867Smyth Sailor's Word-bk., Toshing, a cant word for stealing copper sheathing from vessels' bottoms, or from dock-yard stores. 1974J. Aiken Midnight is Place vi. 180 You tend to the toshing, let Mester Hobday tend to the dealing.
▪ II. ˈtosher2
[Origin uncertain; ? from tosh v.2]
A small fishing smack.
1885Daily Tel. 26 Nov. (Farmer), A tosher is not a long⁓shore driver, though both little vessels are employed in catching what they can close into the land. 1911Daily News 10 Oct. 4 Time after time her stout-hearted skipper thrashed the smaller craft (she is but a ‘tosher’ of 23 tons, carrying only three hands), to windward.
▪ III. tosher3 Undergraduates' slang.|ˈtɒʃə(r)|
[A humorous deformation from unattached: cf. footer n.1 3 b, rugger2, socker, etc.]
An ‘unattached’ or non-collegiate student at a university having residential colleges.
1889Durham Univ. Jrnl. 9 Nov. 216 The ‘toshers’ as they are called in 'Varsity slang—the term is a corruption of the word ‘unattached’—have been looked down upon in the past. 1891Duncan Amer. Girl in Lond. 254 The man..being an unattached student, a ‘tosher’. 1897Blackw. Mag. May 724 A third deemed that the millennium had arrived with the advent to Oxford of the humble ‘tosher’. |