posh

«posh» in Mova's school dictionary: very smart, expensive and fancy, like a posh hotel or a… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 3 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

adjective (posh, posher, poshest); adverb (informal)

meaning for a pupil

1) (informal, UK) Posh means very smart, expensive and fancy, like a posh hotel or a posh car. tree →

2) (informal, UK) A posh person is from a rich, upper-class family, or speaks and acts like one. tree →

3) "Talk posh" means to speak in a very proper, upper-class accent. tree →

sense in the lessons

Very common in British, Irish, Australian and New Zealand speech, sometimes as teasing. It tells the reader about money, class and how people seem. In lessons about kindness, children learn not to judge people by whether they seem posh or not. Phrases: «a posh restaurant», «talk posh», «posh school», «posh nosh» (fancy food), «Posh Spice».

examples

• We went to a posh restaurant for Grandma's birthday. tree →
• The new kid talks a bit posh. tree →
• That's a posh car! tree →
• They live in a posh part of town. tree →
• Mum put on her posh voice on the phone. tree →
• We had sandwiches, nothing posh. tree →
• Don't tease him for being posh; it isn't his fault. tree →

note

Informal; mainly British. Comparatives: posher, poshest. Myth: the story that «posh» comes from "port out, starboard home" on ships is almost certainly not true; nobody knows the real origin. It can sound mocking, so use it kindly.

In the corpora

• Mark in Bristol says, «Proper job, the writer made the baddie talk all posh.
• The way a character speaks, posh, rough, local or old-fashioned, helps to show what they are like.
• Posh or not, cousins are kids too.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «posh» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.