tosh
n.n. nonsense or lies that are not true. You use this word when you want to say that someone is talking rubbish or telling a story that is impossible to believe.
n. nonsense or lies; a falsehood or a story that is untrue. Informal and humorous in register; often used to dismiss a claim as absurd or baseless.
Don't believe a word of that tosh.
He told me a story about a giant goldfish, but I knew it was just tosh.
The politician's claims about the economic recovery were dismissed as pure tosh by the financial experts who had been tracking the data for years.
From 19th-century British thieves' cant, of uncertain origin. Perhaps from *tarsh, a metathetic alteration of trash; or from toss. Sense of nonsense possibly influenced by tush (“nonsense! tsk tsk!”) attested from 15th century.
Compare Old French tonce (“shorn, clipped”) and English tonsure.
From 19th-century British slang tosheroon, from or alongside tusheroon, of uncertain derivation from British slang caroon (“crown, a 5-shilling silver coin”), from Sabir and (originally) Italian corona (“crown”). The term was either derived from or influenced by madza caroon, the British slang for the Sabir and Italian mezzo corona (“half-crown”), possibly under influence from tosh (“copper items; valuables”) above or from the half-crown's value of two shillings & sixpence.