▪ I. losh, n.1
(lɒʃ)
Also 7 losy.
[a. Russ. los{p}.]
† 1. An elk. Obs.
| 1591 [see olen]. 1599 Hakluyt Voy. I. 463 An Elke or Loshe, the Red deere of the countrey. 1613 Purchas Pilgrimage iv. xvii. 431 They worship the Sunne, the Ollen, and the Losy and such like. a 1674 Milton Hist. Mosc. ii. Wks. 1851 VIII. 482 People riding on Elks and Loshes. |
2. losh hide, losh leather: the untanned hide of the elk, and later of the buffalo and ox, prepared with oil; a soft buff-coloured leather; wash-leather. (Cf. lasch n.)
| 1583 Carlile in Hakluyt's Voy. (1600) III. 184 Losshe hides, rich Furres, and other such like. 1591 G. Fletcher Russe Commw. (Hakl. Soc.) 10 Their losh or buffe hide is very faire and large. 1662 Irish Stat. (1765) II. 409 Losh hides, the piece {pstlg}1. 1756 Gentl. Mag. XXVI. 61 Losh, or buff-leather, drest in oil. 1852 C. Morfit Tanning & Currying (1853) 433 Oiled leather is commonly known as..wash⁓leather... It is also called losh leather. 1864 Craig, Suppl., Losh-hide, a hide not dressed in any way, but simply oiled. |
▪ II. losh, n.2
(lɒʃ)
[a. F. loche = loach.]
A name in Canada and Alaska for the burbot.
| 1884 Goode, etc. Nat. Hist. Useful Aquatic Anim. i. 236 In Alaska..it is known as ‘Losh’; in Canada, as ‘la Loche’. 1884 Riverside Nat. Hist. (1888) III. 273. |
▪ III. † losh, v. Obs.
[? Onomatopœic.]
intr. ? To fall with a splash; to go stumbling.
| 1629 Gaule Holy Madn. 170 Yet am I not so sheepish, to losh into the Ditch. 1847–78 Halliwell, Losh, to splash in water. North. 1859 Whitehead Leg. (1896) 19 (E.D.D.) An laykes and loshes ower the steaynes. |
▪ IV. losh, int. Sc.
(loʃ)
A distortion of lord, used in certain exclamations.
| a 1779 D. Graham Leper the Taylor (1785) 17 The losh preserve me, sirs. 1792 G. Galloway Poems 40 Tax shoon! losh how the snobs will glunch. 1826 J. Wilson Noct. Ambr. Wks. 1855 I. 244 Losh me! that's beautiful language. 1901 Blackw. Mag. Mar. 363/1 ‘Losh! the body's cracked’. |