Meaning
Smart, elegant, or luxurious in an upscale, upper-class way; in British English especially of accents, schools, clothes, and venues, and frequently tinged with mockery or self-deprecation. Outside Britain it mainly labels things fancy, glamorous, or expensive. Colloquial; in Britain often ironic or class-conscious rather than neutral praise. Regional use: British English in its core sense; widely understood elsewhere.
Origin
The famous story that posh is an acronym of 'port out, starboard home', supposedly stamped on tickets for the shaded cabin side of steamers bound to and from India, is debunked: no such tickets have been found, P&O said it never issued them, word-acronyms of that kind barely existed before the 20th century, the tale is attested only from 1933 long after the word appeared, and it was formally demolished as early as 1971 in The Mariner's Mirror. The real origin is unknown. Etymonline dates the word to 1914 (with a 1903 use of the similar 'push'), probably from thieves' slang for a dandy in the 1890s, itself from slang for money in 1830, possibly from Romany posh meaning half. The Phrase Finder also notes Murray Posh, 'a swell', in The Diary of a Nobody (1888) and treats a September 1918 Punch cartoon as the first unequivocal gloss.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- poshness (noun)
- to posh something up (verb)
Usage Examples
- They booked a posh hotel for their anniversary and splurged on the spa downstairs.
- Her posh accent surprised us, given she grew up in the same factory town as everyone else.
- The cafe has gone posh since the new owner arrived, with flat whites and sourdough on the menu.