Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. Oxford Univ.) nonsense, rubbish.

1895		‘’Arry on the Season’ in Punch 22 June 298/1: Jemmy has shirked it for tosh on ‘ethereal mildness,’ and such.
1905		Marvel III:60 31: He’s making me feel I want to be ill with all the tosh he talks!
1912		P.C. Wren Dew & Mildew 270: ‘That’s all tosh and posh’.
1914		‘Bartimeus’ ‘Farewell and Adieu!’ in Naval Occasions 135: Look at those brooches; naval crowns; hat-pins made of uniform buttons, bracelets with flags done in enamel [...] Pouf ! What Tosh!
1925		Wodehouse Carry on, Jeeves 101: It’s easier for a chappie who’s used to writing poems and that sort of tosh to put a bit of punch into a letter.
1938		(ref. to 1920s) R. McAlmon Being Geniuses Together 49: None of that Peter Pan or Milne tosh.
1956		J. Curtis Look Long Upon a Monkey 17: I’d say you both must have gone slightly round the bend, if I thought for a moment you sincerely meant such utter tosh.
1989		T. Blacker Fixx 26: Their susceptible female minds were filled with dangerous, revolutionary tosh.
1998		Observer 27 Dec. 32: All that tosh about Enoch Powell being the greatest politician never to become PM.
2006		Guardian 6 Mar. 🌐 But it is still self-deluding tosh.
2016		Guardian G2 14 Oct. 11/1: [A] short-lived West End musical ‘Napoleon’ (‘Historical tosh’).
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 247: It was just the sort of tosh that Himmler himself had gone in for.

2. referring to that which is mediocre, second-rate.

1903		Wodehouse ‘How Pillingshot Scored’ in Captain May 🌐 The man Yorke is going to bowl me some of his celebrated slow tosh.
1909		Wodehouse Mike [ebook] Mike had seen enough of Wyatt’s bowling to know that it was merely ordinary ‘slow tosh’.