Smouch

[mhw]

(Obs./cant) Dried leaves of the ash tree, used by smugglers for adulterating the black, or bohea, teas.

[Francis Grose, Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1785]

Comments

[petrusplancius]

Also old slang for a Jew.

[hitchhiker]

both MOUCH and SMOUCH are good in (sowpods) scrabble, for anyone else who cares :) smouch also seems to be a verb of some sort, since SMOUCHED and SMOUCHING are there in the wordlist.

[petrusplancius]

According to the OED smouch was used as a verb in the sense of kiss, suffocate, smother etc.; to judge by the passages cited there, it hardly seems to have survived in that sense beyond the 18th Century.

[pseudomonas]

Is it cognate with "smooch"?