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Davy Jones's Locker
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
fiend 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.
Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894 More on Davy Jones's Locker from Infoplease:
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