"Kybosh" as a tool or weapon? (1860)

Douglas G. Wilson douglas at NB.NET
Sat Jul 3 03:17:32 UTC 2010


 From N'archive:

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_Lloyd's Weekly London Newspaper_ (London), 14 Oct. 1860: p. 4:

[testimony in police court involving violence between clogmakers
apparently involved in a unionization dispute or the like]

<<I did not speak to Bamforth. I did not challenge him to fight, nor did
I strike him or knock him down. I know what a kybosh is (a laugh) It is
a piece of iron about a foot long; but I did not use one. .... He had a
kybosh in his hand, but he took it up in self-defence.>>

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Is this kybosh basically a sort of bludgeon? Is "kybosh" here a variant
or ancestor of "cosh"?

Or is this kybosh possibly some other type of implement -- perhaps a
clogmaker's tool -- which could double as a weapon?

-- Doug Wilson

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