(The), subs. (common).—The sea: spec. the North Atlantic Ocean: also HERRING-POND (q.v.); THE BIG (or GREAT) POND (q.v.); and THE PUDDLE (q.v.).—GROSE (1785); BEE (1823).
1700. England’s Path to Wealth and Honour. ’Tis odds but a finer country, cheaper and better food and raiment, wholesomer air, easier rents and taxes, will tempt many of your countrymen to cross the HERRING-POND.
1729. GAY, Polly, i. 1. Bless us all! how little are our customs known on this side the HERRING-POND!
1838. HALIBURTON (‘Sam Slick’), The Clockmaker, 3 S. xviii. He is … the best live one that ever cut dirt this side of the BIG POND, or t’other side either.
1863. The Singular Story of a Lancashire Thief, 8. A swell prig who had hooked it from London to escape being slowed, and maybe sent over the HERRING POND.
1883. G. A. SALA, Living London, 204. Next time Miss Ward crosses the BIG POND, I … hope that she will cross the Rockies.
1890. Tit-Bits, 29 March, 388, 3. I may tell you that I came over the BIG POND for poisoning from jealousy. It wasn’t for petty thefts.
1901. Daily Telegraph, 7 Oct., 3, 5. Two gentlemen who betrayed a strong American accent … offered to buy the house as it stood in order “to lift it bodily across THE POND.”
