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Davy Jones’s Locker

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He’s gone to Davy Jones’s locker, i.e. he is dead. Jones is a corruption of Jonah, the prophet, who was thrown into the sea. Locker, in seaman’s phrase, means any receptacle for private stores; and duffy is a ghost or spirit among the West Indian negroes. So the whole phrase is, “He is gone to the place of safe keeping, where duffy Jonah was sent to.”

“This same Davy Jones, according to the mythology of sailors, is the flend that presides over all the evil spirits of the deep, and is seen in various shapes … . warning the devoted wretch of death and woe.”—Smollett: Peregrine Pickle, xiii.

 

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A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

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Daughter of the Horseleech
Dauphin
Davenport
Davenport (The Brothers)
David
David and Jonathan
Davideis
Davus
Davy
Davy (Snuffy)
Davy Jones’s Locker
Davy’s Sow
Dawson (Bully)
Day
Day of the Barricades
Day of the Dupes
Day-dream
Daylight
Daylights
Days set apart as Sabbaths
Daysman

See Also:

Davy Jones's Locker