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Etymology and origin of the English word bosh

Pronunciation

bosh1 part of a blast furnace

Confidence
Unknown
First attested
1686 R. Plot, Natural History of Staffordshire

Etymology

The word for the sloping part of a blast furnace is of unknown origin.[2][3] The OED notes that it has been compared with German böschen (“to slope”),[2] and Dictionary.com takes it as probably German, related to that verb and to Böschung (“slope, scarp”).[4] Merriam-Webster Unabridged and Webster's Third suggest a German dialect word bosch (“grass-covered slope”), related to Old High German busc.[5][6] The OED adds that the trough sense may have a different source.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the plural, the lower part of a blast furnace's shaft, sloping down from its widest part to the hearth: 1686, in Robert Plot's Natural History of Staffordshire.[2] The Shorter Oxford also dates it to the late 17th century,[3] and Dictionary.com to 1670–80.[4]

Semantic evolution

The plural was used because blast furnaces were once square in section, and the boshes were the four sloping walls of the lower part;[2] later the singular was used for the whole of this part.[3] From 1881 a bosh was also a trough in which tools or hot ingots were cooled,[2][5] which the Shorter Oxford labels dialect.[3] Wright's dialect dictionary records both the furnace bottom and the cooling trough in Northumberland, Yorkshire and Staffordshire.[7]

Timeline

  • 1686 – the sloping lower part of a blast furnace.[2]
  • 1881 – a trough for cooling tools or ingots.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The lower, sloping part of a blast furnace, between the hearth and the widest part of the shaft.[5][8][2]
  2. A trough in which tools or hot ingots are cooled, in forging or smelting.[5][2][3]
  3. A tank of boiling soda water for washing metal parts.[5]
  4. A siliceous deposit on the surfaces of vessels used for refining copper.[8]

bosh2 nonsense

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1834 James Morier, Ayesha, the Maid of Kars
Borrowed from
Turkish boş
Ultimate origin
Old Turkic boš

Etymology

The word for nonsense is borrowed from Turkish boş (“empty, worthless”),[2][9][10][3][5][8][11] which Nişanyan traces to Old Turkic boš (“free, released”), recorded in the “Irk Bitig” before 900;[12][9] the sense "not full" appears in the “Codex Cumanicus” of 1300.[12] Starostin and his colleagues reconstruct Proto-Turkic *boĺ (“free, empty”).[13] The word became current in English through its frequent use in James Morier's novel “Ayesha, the Maid of Kars” (1834),[2][9][10][11][14] especially after the novel's reissue in the Standard Novels edition of 1846.[2][15][16] A writer in Baily's Magazine in 1871 suggested a pun with Romani bosh (“a fiddle”) and fiddle-de-dee.[16]

Earliest recorded meaning

Morier used it in 1834 as a Turkish word, as in "This firman is bosh – nothing".[16][11] Merriam-Webster Unabridged gives 1829 for the sense "nonsense",[5] Etymonline 1839,[14] and the OED's first record is from 1850.[2]

Semantic evolution

By about 1845 the Yale Literary Magazine called a kind of talk bosh,[16] and in 1850 Thackeray glossed it as "fudge, in plain Saxon".[16] As an exclamation dismissing something as nonsense it appears in 1850 in a letter of Charles Kingsley,[2] or in Barnhart in 1852, in Dickens's Bleak House.[11] From 1864 to make a bosh of meant to make a mess of something,[2] and the verb bosh, to spoil or make of no effect, followed in 1870.[2][16] In the United States the noun and the exclamation were used chiefly in the South, South Midland and Northeast, and are now old-fashioned.[17] The adjective boshy, nonsensical, dates from the mid 19th century.[3]

Timeline

  • 1834 – in Morier's Ayesha, a Turkish word for something empty or worthless.[16][11] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates the sense “nonsense” to 1829.[5]
  • c. 1845 – nonsense, foolish talk.[16] Etymonline gives 1839, and the OED 1850.[14][2]
  • 1850 – an exclamation dismissing something as nonsense.[2]
  • 1864 – a failure or mess, in to make a bosh of.[2]
  • 1870 – verb, to spoil, to make of no effect.[2][16]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Foolish or empty talk, ideas or writing; nonsense: The rumour about the merger is complete bosh.[5][8][18][2]
  2. Something worthless or trifling.[5]

Interjection

  1. Used to express disbelief or annoyance, or to dismiss something as nonsense.[18][2][5]

Verb

  1. (slang) To spoil or make of no effect.[2][16]

Word family

  • boshy

Usage notes

Several other words of this spelling had a shorter life.[2][16] To cut a bosh, to make an imposing or swaggering figure, was used from 1726 to 1751, perhaps from French ébauche (“outline, rough sketch”);[2] Wright's dialect dictionary still recorded it in Norfolk.[7] A bosh was a fiddle in slang from the Romani verb bosh- (“to crow, to fiddle”), first recorded in Hotten's slang dictionary (1859), with the OED's record beginning in 1876.[2][16] In 19th-century British slang bosh was also margarine or other imitation butter.[16] Since 1993 the OED has recorded an imitative exclamation bosh for something done quickly and easily, as in bish bash bosh.[2]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  6. ^ Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
  7. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  8. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  9. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  10. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  11. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
  12. ^ a b Nişanyan, Sevan, Nişanyan Sözlük: Çağdaş Türkçenin Etimolojisi (online edition)
  13. ^ Starostin, Sergei; Dybo, Anna; Mudrak, Oleg (2003), Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, Leiden: Brill
  14. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  15. ^ Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  16. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  17. ^ Cassidy, Frederic G. & Joan Houston Hall (eds.) (1985–2002), Dictionary of American Regional English, vols I–IV, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
  18. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Bosh.” Etymologically, 8 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/bosh. Accessed 9 Nov. 2026.

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