posh
1 Americanadjective
interjection
adjective
-
smart, elegant, or fashionable; exclusive
posh clothes
-
upper-class or genteel
adverb
Usage
What else does posh mean? The adjective posh means that something or someone is rich, fancy, or otherwise smells of money.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of posh1
1915–20; of obscure origin; compare posh a dandy (recorded as British slang in 1890); the popular notion that the word is an acronym from port out(ward) , starboard home, said to be the preferred accommodation on ships traveling between England and India, is without foundation
Origin of posh2
First recorded in 1920–25
Explanation
Things that are posh are swanky, fancy, and high-class. Posh things usually cost a lot of money, too. If something is dirty, cheap, and shoddy, it will never be accused of being posh. Posh things are elegant and expensive. A posh apartment is gorgeous and classy. A posh restaurant has fancy food and you probably have to dress up to go there. Posh places are luxurious and fancy-schmancy. So it's no surprise that rich people tend to like things and places that are posh.
Vocabulary lists containing posh
The War That Saved My Life
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Other Words for Home
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A Thousand Splendid Suns
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Photos of the spread aren’t available, but the posh property is said to be anchored by a 14,000-square-foot, eight-bedroom home.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 13, 2026
When the King looked rather like he was facing a very tricky spin attack, she suggested: "A posh word like 'lavatory'."
From BBC ● Jun. 24, 2026
Speaking afterwards, the cricketer said she was learning English and wanted to find out some posh words to use, suggesting "marvellous" as another example.
From BBC ● Jun. 24, 2026
In April, he was staying at the posh Cayena Hotel in east Caracas, a popular haunt for bankers, diplomats and oilmen, as he met with Venezuelan government officials and Rodríguez.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 26, 2026
For the first few days at Princeton, the boys kicked back and luxuriated in the posh surroundings of the hotel and country club.
From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown
These days, the 35-year-old’s gigs are at posher places such as London’s Royal Opera House and the Salzburg Festival.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 19, 2024
The late senator, herself raised in a well-heeled Jewish family from a posher part of town, just had a knack for showing she cared about her fellow San Franciscans, no matter their background, Chacón said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2023
"Here, Comer speaks in an affectedly sanded-down version of her own Scouse accent, like Tessa has deliberately smoothed out her vowels in the name of blending in with her posher peers."
From BBC ● Apr. 28, 2022
Ms. Fox was born in Italy, but raised in Yorkville, an Upper East Side neighborhood east of the posher Park Avenue.
From New York Times ● Dec. 9, 2019
If you just heard her voice next to Mum's you'd say Mum's posher.
From "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell
To say that Beacon Hill is the poshest part of Boston is not entirely true.
From Scientific American ● Nov. 2, 2023
Nichols’ covenants in Sunset Hill and Mission Hills, two of his poshest neighborhoods, were said by his company to have been copied in more than 50 cities.
From Slate ● Aug. 16, 2023
Faulty lifts, flooding and intolerable noises are just some of the woes that the billionaire residents of one of New York's poshest buildings say they face daily.
From BBC ● Sep. 24, 2021
A nature-inspired playground overlooks a sandy beach with the poshest park restrooms I’ve ever seen.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 26, 2021
Kingfisher Meadows's the poshest estate in Black Swan Green, most kids reckon.
From "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
