Rex Trulove
A word that was previously examined was “posh”. When they read that article, some people might have thought about the term ‘pish posh’, which is normally used to mean nonsense, absurdity, or hogwash. However, did you know that “pish” is actually a word?
Pish means displeasing, poor quality, poorly, or inadequate. It is actually from ‘pish’ that ‘pish posh’ gets its meaning.
The original meaning of pish was a term to show disgust, annoyance, or impatience. The word has been in use since the 1700s.
While ‘pish’ has a place in the language, ‘pish posh’ is a bit different. Pish posh is a corruption of “pish pash”. Pish pash, in turn, is a reference to a stew made in India and normally eaten by poor people. The stew meat is of poor quality and it is often mashed, presumably to make it stretch out and last longer.
The meaning of ‘pish’ lends itself well to the phrase ‘pish pash’ because the stew was considered to be barely edible and of poor quality. To use a more modern slang term, the stew is yucky.
In any event, pish actually does have a meaning and it has been in use for roughly 300 years. It isn’t commonly used today, but it remains a legitimate English word.
I have heard the word pish in the past before, but didn’t know what it meant. So this is interesting to know, thankyou.
I think it is always a very good thing when we can expand our knowledge. Even if a person never uses pish, it is nice to know what it means.
I use yucky a lot but never pish. This is cool to know. Word power!
That is for sure! There are a lot of words that people think were just slang terms that actually have a meaning. Knowing the actual meaning is extremely helpful.
Amazing how words come down to us through the years. Thanks for writing this.
You’re quite welcome. You asked, and I know that you were being funny, but pish really does have a meaning. I’m greatly entertained by the origin of words and phrases. lol