Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to eat, esp. to snack, to eat between meals; occas. to drink.

1886		Sporting Times 24 Apr. 6/2: She’s a makin’ a matsa kleise puddin’, / (I wish I was noshin a bit).
1931		G. Berg Rise of the Goldbergs 117: You’ll get maybe two but you shouldn’t nash* from de bag on devay home. *Nibble; sample.
1948		N.Y. Herald Trib. 28 Feb. 11/6: It will last for two hours while the drinker ‘schmoozes and nashes’ down $1 worth of ham free.
1960		Galton & Simpson ‘The Reunion Party’ Hancock’s Half-Hour [TV script] Stone me, he used to nosh like nobody’s business in the Army.
1968		A. Burgess Enderby Outside in Complete Enderby (2002) 343: Anyone noshing in there? [...] His head twitched towards the dining-room.
1978		R. Price Ladies’ Man (1985) 153: I started getting hungry and brought in the salad bowl so we could nosh.
1979		Eble Campus Sl. Mar. 5: knosh – to snack.
1985		S. Berkoff West in Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 93: Mum’s left chicken soup for you to nosh.
1990		(con. early 1950s) J. Ellroy L.A. Confidential 294: He’d rather nosh grease at Kikey’s fucking deli.
1996		J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 282: Then the thought hits me that, if I can’t nosh royally tonight then I can maybe get classy pissed.
2001		M. Coles Bible in Cockney 88: When they all had nothing left to nosh, Jesus [...] said, ‘I feel sorry for this lot’.
2009		(con. 1960s) J. Ellroy Blood’s a Rover 25: Phil was hunkered down to mosh.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 10: I noshed a dozen Famous Amos cookies.

2. (also nosh off) to practise oral sex [pun on sense 1].

1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 142: nosh [...] 2. (fr Yid noshen = to nibble between meals) to suck cock.
1978		H. Selby Jr Requiem for a Dream (1987) 10: I like to knosh. A little chopped liver, a little smoked fish.
1998		K. Sampson Awaydays 45: I know them vaguely from Rupert’s, where they’ve got a bit of a rep as Nosh Queens.
2002		White Panty Superette 🌐 And indeed, by six o’clock that same evening we were noshing down on each others’ ‘cakes’ as if nothing untoward, like fame, success or sexual straightness, had ever taken place at all.
2013		in Guardian 18 Apr. 🌐 To say that she noshed me off for a good review is probably a bit unfair.
2022		Supertanskiii on Twitter 29 June 🌐 Of all the things I wanted to read today, a story about Boris Johnson getting noshed off by a very toothy Symonds [...] isn’t on the list.