Meaning
To discard, get rid of, cancel or destroy something decisively; in older naval and criminal slang, to throw overboard, or to kill. The noun the deep six means a place of disposal or the grave, as in give it the deep six. Now general informal usage, applied to anything from unwanted papers to doomed legislation, plans or careers. Informal, chiefly American. The noun usually appears in give something the deep six. The public datings disagree slightly (1922 versus circa 1929), reported rather than reconciled; the six-fathom burial regulation is folklore. Regional use: United States origin (naval slang); now widespread in English.
Origin
Merriam-Webster dates the noun to 1922 and the verb to 1944, deriving the noun from the leadsman's call by the deep six for the depth at the sixth marking on a sounding line - six fathoms, or thirty-six feet. Wiktionary, verified on its fetched entry, dates the noun to about 1929 with the verb common from the 1950s and an earliest quotation of 1950 from Boys' Life. The sources disagree on the origin: Merriam-Webster and Wiktionary favour the leadsman's call, while Wordorigins.org calls the origin uncertain but widely thought to reference burial at sea at six fathoms. Debunked: the popular story that the phrase comes from an official naval rule burying the dead at six fathoms is unsupported - none of these references cites any such regulation.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- deep-sixed
- get the deep six
- give it the deep six
Usage Examples
- The committee deep-sixed the proposal before it ever reached the floor.
- Do not deep-six those old letters - they might be worth something someday.
- Word was the studio had already given the sequel the deep six.