Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)
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First published 1974 (SND Vol. IX).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.
TUSH, v. As in Eng., to express impatient contempt. Sc. derivs., invented by Stevenson: tusher, one who exclaims impatiently “tush!”; tushery, a term applied to a conventional style of historical fiction marked by the liberal use of archaisms, as “tush”, and intended prob. as an oblique reference to Scott in such novels as Ivanhoe, Kenilworth, The Betrothed, Count Robert of Paris.Sc. 1883 Stevenson Letters (1924) II. 242:
Ay, friend, a whole tale of tushery. And every tusher tushes me so free, that may I be tushed if the whole thing is worth a tush.Sc. 1903 J. H. Millar Liter. Hist. Scot. 651:
The Black Arrow — a piece of mere “tushery”.
