Tovarish

Pronunciation

• IPA: /tɒˈvɑːrɪʃ/

Alternative forms

• tovarishch
• tovarisch
• tovarich

Origin

Russian товарищ, from .

Full definition of tovarish

Noun

1. Comrade, especially with reference to the former USSR.
• 1919, The Times, 6 Dec 1919, p.10 col. C,Instead of addressing them according to revolutionary etiquette as Tovarish (comrade), he asked them their Christian names and that of their fathers, while telling them his own.
• 1940, Jan Valtin, Out of the Night, 2005, Kessinger Publishing Company, page 436,Jensen laughed, “My wife complains: ‘All day long they ring our door bell. Tovarish here, tovarish there. They come from Moscow, from Leningrad, from Berlin and Hamburg. They don't speak one word of Danish. Comrade Jensen, they say, fix us up with Danish passports.’ So it goes.″
• 1988, Anthony Burgess, ,His Russian was derived from a fortnight’s crash course. ‘You’d better see what this, ah, tovarish thinks he wants.’