welsh

• welch, Welsh

Sometimes suggested to derive from disparaging stereotypes of the Welsh (“people from Wales”), though firm evidence of this derivation is lacking.^[1] Compare gyp (“swindle”) (probably from gypsy (“Roma”)), and jew (“defraud”), from Jew.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /wɛlʃ/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛlʃ
• Homophone: Welsh

welsh (third-person singular simple present welshes, present participle welshing, simple past and past participle welshed)

1. (derogatory, sometimes offensive) To cheat or swindle someone, often by not paying a debt, especially a gambling debt.
2. (derogatory, sometimes offensive) To go back on one's word.
   • 2023 September 28, HarryBlank, “Hooking Up”, in SCP Foundation‎^[1], archived from the original on 25 May 2024:

     "He can weasel out if^[sic] it." Ibanez massaged her knuckles. "He can say Couch welshed on a deal, and didn't show, and that's why Karen got got. It isn't conclusive. I have another thing I can lay on him, but even the two combined won't do. We need a third smoking gun if we're really gonna smoke this son of a bitch."

• The use of this term is sometimes considered offensive, especially by Welsh people, because it is taken as a negative stereotype of the Welsh.^[1]

• gyp
• jew down

From Old English welise (“foreign”)

welsh (comparative more welsh, superlative most welsh)

1. (obsolete) Foreign.

• welshnut (walnut)
• Welsh onion

• “welsh”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “welsh”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.