Pirates are always popular. From children's stories like Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson to classic swashbuckling films with Errol Flynn, or the recent Disney Pirates of the Caribbean movies, pirates fascinate and captivate. They also have their own way of talking, and live in a world very different from our own. That's where this dictionary comes in. Here you'll find all the common words and phrases pirates used, and the stories of many famous pirates too.
dagger
Used as a bayonet in a musket after the weapon had been fired.
Davy Jones
The evil spirit of the sea. According to legend, Davy Jones sacrificed his own heart in an act of love and was then consigned to see to the fate of the souls of sailors who died at sea.
Davy Jones’ locker
The bottom of the sea, especially when seen as the grave of people who drowned. A standard, if apocryphal, threat from a pirate was "I'll send you to Davy Jones' locker!".
Dead Man's Chest
So goes the phrase from the famous pirate song:
Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest – yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
But what does this mean? The chest of a dead man cannot possibly accommodate more than a couple of people. A sea chest couldn't either. But there is an answer, according to the book Pirates of the Spanish Main. An old name for a coffin was a “dead chest” (a chest for a dead person). Further, there is an island between St. John and Tortola in Drake's Channel called Dead Chest. When seen at a distance, its silhouette strongly resembles a coffin. So this old pirate shanty may refer to this island where pirates drank rum and otherwise celebrated their lives.
deadlights
Eyes. Also the protective cover over a porthole or window on a ship, hence the association.
deckhand
A sailor who worked on the decks, usually at menial tasks such as swabbing the decks or filling in cracks with rope or pitch.
doubloon
A Spanish gold coin, worth four or sixteen pesos (hence, pieces of eight). The name doubloon comes from the French doublon or Spanish doblón, from doble, meaning 'double'. The coin was called a doubloon because it was worth twice the value of a pistole.
draft
The depth of the bottom of a ship below the surface of a sea. A ship with a shallow draft, as favored by pirates, could maneuver in shallow waters, escape through narrow channels with sandbars and other impediments to larger ships with a deeper draft.
