cosh, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

cosh n.

also kosh

[echoic; note dial. cosh, stick (of any kind), but it may not predate the sl.]

1. a stout stick, bludgeon or truncheon, a ‘life-preserver’; thus cosh-bandit, cosh-boy, cosh-man, the cosh.

1868		‘Six Years in the Prisons of England’ in Temple Bar Mag. Nov. 539: Her accomplice the coshman (a man who carries a ‘cosh’ or life-preserver) comes up.
1873		Sl. Dict. 129: Cosh a neddy, a life-preserver; any short, loaded bludgeon.
1896		A. Morrison Child of the Jago (1982) 48: The cosh was a foot length of iron rod, with a knob at one end, and a hook (or a ring) at the other.
1903		A. Binstead Pitcher in Paradise 39: Taking the blow of the steel ‘kosh’ and the biff of the brass knuckles without a grunt.
1925		E. Jervis 25 Years in Six Prisons 79: The ‘copper’ settled him by a blow on the shoulder with his ‘kosh’.
1929		(con. WWI) R. Graves Goodbye to All That (1960) 111: We inclined more to the ‘cosh’, a loaded stick.
1935		G. Ingram Cockney Cavalcade 15: Some of those [...] set upon them, using ‘coshes’ and razors.
1941		V. Davis Phenomena in Crime 41: Loaded canes, known as ‘coshes’.
1954		Wodehouse Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit 148: This cosh [...] was a small rubber bludgeon.
1954		Sussex Agric. Press 26 Mar. 1/6: Docile Prisoner Assaulted policeman [...] He is not a cosh boy and very much regrets this.
1959		J. Gosling Ghost Squad 48: When people talk about ‘dangerous criminals’ they usually mean the crook who uses violence — the gunman, the chivver, the cosh-boy.
1962		B. McGhee Cut and Run (1963) 9: Squeamishness is the cosh-boy’s worst crime.
1962		R. Cook Crust on its Uppers 66: Mrs. Byrd cannot [...] have her tearaway thump us over the lump with a cosh.
1992		in R. Graef Living Dangerously 100: One of them’s got a cosh.
2007		N. ‘Razor’ Smith Raiders 2: [He] drew the line at [...] putting the cosh about.

2. the action of knocking out or down with a cosh; a blow with a cosh.

1896		A. Morrison Child of the Jago (1982) 48: Clearly, here was an uncommonly remunerative cosh — a cosh so good that the boots had been neglected, and remained on the man’s feet.
1908		Magnet 7 Mar. 11: It caught me a cosh on the boko.
2000		(con. 1974) Z. Smith White Teeth 6: Giving him a thorough cosh to the back of his head and almost knocking the boy off his perch.

3. in fig. use, anything forceful.

1989

M. Amis London Fields 209: No danger will Keith bottle it when the cosh comes down.

In compounds

cosh carrier (n.)

one who works with and acts as a bodyguard for a prostitute; thus cosh-carrying n.

1893		Nottingham Eve. Post 10 Jan. 3/2: It was his own admission that he was a ‘cosh carrier’ and they knew what that meant.
1893		Nott. Express 7 Mar. 6: ‘I shall be a cosh-carrier the next trade I start.’ That seemed to be a term to describe a man who looked after a common woman and lived on her prostitution [EDD].
1896		A. Morrison Child of the Jago (1982) 47: Cosh-carrying was near to being the major industry of the Jago. [Ibid.] 65: Pigeony Poll [...] neither fought nor kept a cosh-carrier.

cosh-poke (n.)

(UK prison) a club, a bludgeon.

1954

J. Phelan Tramp at Anchor 177: The Bastard feels his cosh-poke. He pulls up Number One.

In phrases

carry the cosh (v.) [the practice of the pimp ambushing and robbing the whore’s client]

(UK Und.) working as a pimp.

1885		M. Davitt Leaves from a Prison Diary I 126: He [i.e. a pimp] very often resorts to a method which bears some resemblance to the crimes next to be described, namely ‘carrying the kosh’ (bludgeon). Armed with this weapon, he keeps in sight of his ‘old woman’ for ‘protection,’ and upon anyone engaging the latter in conversation [...] rushes to the rescue of his ‘wife or sister’ and offers the person thus caught the alternative of being punched into mince-meat in no time, or the forking out of all the loose change he may have upon his person.
1896		A. Morrison Child of the Jago (1982) 47: ’Is missis do pick ’em up, s’elp me. I’d carry the cosh meself, if I’d a woman like ’er.
1941		V. Davis Phenomena in Crime 253: Carrying the cosh. Living on and touting for prostitutes.

under the cosh

1. in trouble, at a disadvantage; thus have someone under the cosh, to have someone at a disadvantage.

1958		F. Norman Bang To Rights 37: This is more likely to happen in the nick where you are under the cosh.
1962		F. Norman Guntz 187: You are under the cosh to them for ever and ever.
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak.
1990		J. Healy Streets Above Us (1991) 158: She’s got you right under the cosh.

2. under pressure, usu. at work.

2004		personal communication: Would love to have lunch, early Feb looks most feasible as so under the cosh what with the new boss machine and all.
2010		IOL News (Western Cape) 28 Sept. 🌐 I’d been so much under the cosh (slang for ‘under pressure’) for so many years.
2012		(con. 1980s) I. Welsh Skagboys 254: It takes a lotta gumption ta keep it together [...] We’re all under the farking cosh.