Lush (adj)

[mcgillianaire]

1440, "lax, flaccid, soft, tender," from O.Fr. lasche "soft, succulent," from laschier "loosen," from L.L. laxicare "become shaky," related to L. laxare "loosen," from laxus "loose" (see lax). Sense of "luxuriant in growth" is first attested 1610; erroneously applied to colors since 1744.

This is my current favourite British slang word. Urban Dictionary has a decent definition: British slang term to describe something pleasing or desirable. Eg: "that girl is fucking lush" or "i had the most lush milkshake last night". That first example is lush.

I find non-Londoners use it the most and when my North-East mates say it, it rhymes with whoosh. I'm not sure if pappubahry noticed it when we met a few weeks ago, but I find myself pronouncing many words ending in -ush as though it rhymed with whoosh. So cool!

Comments

[pappubahry.livejournal.com]

when my North-East mates say it, it rhymes with whoosh
I'm not great on regional English accents, but don't people from the North-East generally pronounce the short 'u' like that? So, eg, buck becomes book, or something close to it.

[mcgillianaire.livejournal.com]

I'm not an expert either and to be perfectly honest, there are so many regional English accents the pronunciation for a word like book is different depending on which side of Liverpool you're on... so it's actually misleading of me in the first place to group the entire North-East together. There's a distinct accent in each of Durham, Newcastle, Sunderland and Middlesbrough - four major places in the North-East. People from Sunderland for example are known as Mackems and as the others around 'em like to point out, that's because they mackem and tackem (make 'em and take 'em).

Now, as for buck/book and lush/whoosh I think it also depends on how you pronounce those comparison words (ie, buck and whoosh) to determine what it sounds like. I suspect the way I pronounce whoosh convinced me it rhymed with the North-Eastern lush, but maybe you pronounced it slightly different (ie, like buck)?