or Davy, old Davy, subs. phr. (nautical).—The spirit of the sea; specifically the sailors’ devil. [For suggested derivation, see DAVY JONES’S LOCKER, and for synonyms, SKIPPER.]
1751. SMOLLETT, Peregrine Pickle, ch. xiii. This same DAVY JONES, according to the mythology of sailors, is the fiend that presides over all the evil spirits of the deep.
1790. DIBDIN, Sea Songs.
| And if to OLD DAVY I should go, friend Poll, | |
| Why you will never hear of me more. |
c. 1800. T. DIBDIN, The Birth-day, Act I., Sc. 2. June. When your back’s turn’d, she’s for … sending you in a gale to OLD DAVY.
DAVY JONES’ (or DAVY’S) LOCKER, subs. phr. (nautical).—The ocean; specifically, the grave of them that perish at sea. The popular derivation (= a corruption of ‘Jonah’s locker,’ i.e., the place where Jonah was kept and confined, and by implication the grave of all gone to the bottom, drowned or dead) is conjectural. The following, however, may be an additional link in the chain of evidence.
1628. L. ANDREWES, Ninety-six Sermons, p. 515 (fol.). Of any, that hath beene in extreme perill, we use to say: he hath beene where Ionas was; by Iona’s going downe the Whales throat, by Him againe comming forth of the Whales mouth, we expresse, we even point out, the greatest extremity, and the greatest deliverence that can be.
[Cf., quots. under DAVY JONES.]
1785. GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v.
1836. MARRYAT, Mr. Midshipman Easy, xxv. 185. ‘By de holy poker, Massa Easy, but that terrible sort of gale, the other day, any how. I tink, one time, we all go to DAVY JONE’S LOCKER.’
1842. The Comic Almanack, p. 324.
| There is no reason right why Jones’s kid | |
| Should be consign’d to DAVY JONES’S LOCKER. |
1851. Notes and Queries, 1 S., iii., p. 478. If a sailor is killed in a sea-skirmish, or falls overboard and is drowned, or any other fatality occurs which necessitates the consignment of his remains to the ‘great deep,’ his surviving messmates speak of him as one who has been sent to DAVY JONES’ LOCKER.
DAVY PUTTING ON THE COPPERS FOR THE PARSONS, phr. (nautical).—The indications of a coming storm.
DAVY JONES’ NATURAL CHILDREN, subs. phr. (nautical).—Smugglers; sea-rovers; pirates.
