Green’s Dictionary of Slang

nonsense, rubbish.

[1834		J. Morier Ayesha I 219: This firman is bosh – nothing. [Ibid.] I 283: The parts [of the Koran] which are taken from the Christian Bible are divine; [the other parts] are spurious. They are bosh – nothing].
c.1845		Yale Literary Mag. XX 259: Spriggins’s peculiar forte is that kind of talk which some people irreverently called ‘bosh’.
1847		‘Epistle from Joe Muggins’s Dog’ in Era (London) 14 Mar. 3/2: I dare say, you will think this is all ‘bosh’.
1850		Thackeray Rebecca and Rowena in Burlesques (1903) 77: Rebecca knew in her heart that her ladyship’s proposition was what is called bosh [...] or fudge, in plain Saxon.
1855		Broadway Belle (NY) 17 Sept. n.p.: As the Orientals say, they are mere bosh — nothing.
1859		H. Kingsley Recollections of G. Hamlyn (1891) 18: ‘Bosh,’ said the Doctor. ‘All this about Hamlyn’s going out hare-hunting.’.
1861		D. Cook Paul Foster’s Daughter I 298: Did you like the farce? [...] Great bosh, wasn’t it?
1868		Skibereen & West Carbery Eagle (Ireland) 18 Jan. 4/5: As for ‘respect to the ladies’, that’s all bosh.
1879		‘’Arry on Niggers’ in Punch 15 Mar. 113/2: My notion is, Niggers are Warmint [...] / And to talk of their rights and their wrongs is all bosh.
1881		Bulletin (Sydney) 8 Jan. 1/3: This commendation would be arrant bosh if it were not absolutely true – if he had left a real enemy behind him, or one that did not wish him well (in the twofold sense of the phrase).
1883		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 24 Nov. 14/2: [John L.] Sullivan says the story about his giving up drinking for a year was all bosh.
1884		Ally Sloper’s Half Holiday 3 May 2/3: Don’t talk such bosh, / The colour let’s see of your tin.
1888–94		‘Walter’ My Secret Life (1966) IV 770: Mrs. O*b***e [...] began to talk that sort of bosh that women do, who are funky of consequences.
1892		H. Lawson ‘The House of Fossils’ in Roderick (1967–9) I 177: He said, etcetera. But why repeat the senseless bosh agen.
1896		Mirror of Life 5 Sept. 3/1: [T]he report that Blake, the Battersea sweep and pugilist is short-tongued is simply bosh.
1903		J. London People of the Abyss 270: It is sheer bosh and nonsense to preach thrift to the 1,800,000 London workers who are divided into families which have a total income of less than 21s. per week.
1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 4 Aug. 13/3: ‘Oh, that’s a lot o’ bosh! [...] I’ve bin familiar with pubs fer the last 30 years, and I ain’t got a scrap of contempt for ’em!’.
1912		P.C. Wren Dew & Mildew 35: It transpired that the boy most fluent in the humorous bosh [...] actually got money for it.
1913		Wanganui Chron. (N.Z.) 1 Feb. 2/3: Bosh - absolute bosh. Why Bob’s a darned sight worse than Sammy.
1919		Mencken letter 11 July in Riggio Dreiser-Mencken Letters II (1986) 352: Woodrow’s bosh will fetch the boobs in.
1920		C. Sandburg letter 3 Jan. in Mitgang (1968) 175: The stories of many niggers being killed and hidden are bosh.
1925		A. Christie Secret of Chimneys (1956) 48: The part about the peace of Europe is all bosh.
1938		F. Anthony ‘Gus Tomlins’ in Me And Gus (1977) 103: He said afterwards, he didn’t see me standing at the gate, but that’s all bosh.
1938		Pittsburgh Courier (PA) 10 Dec. 11/1: Hugues Panassie, the French critic who thinks that racial hatred is so much bosh.
1939		K. Tennant Foveaux 223: ‘Moved that no action be taken,’ chanted one of the more crusted alderman and added under his breath ‘crackbrained bosh’.
1942		C. Himes ‘Lunching at the Ritzmore’ in Coll. Stories (1990) 17: This agitation about Negroes being discriminated against [...] and being refused service by hotels and restaurants is just so much bosh.
1958		Willans & Searle Complete Molesworth (1985) 131: It is just all BOSH.
1960		J.R. Ackerley We Think The World Of You (1971) 115: All this bosh about not upsetting people!
1999		Observer Rev. 13 June 8: Bosh. But there is far more to Mike Hodges’s superbly structured revenge thriller.
2000		Observer Mag. 11 June 15: Do a bosh job.