Deep six
noun, verb, slang ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 An ejection, discardment or destruction. idiomatic, informal
"Otherwise when Don got in trouble he might have really got the deep six. He had a pretty level head, though, and I guess that's what saved him."
- 2 The grave or death; also, the (notional) place where something is discarded. idiomatic, informal
"The discretion of social conversation, even among friends, is exceeded only by the discretion of “the deep six,” that grave wherein nothing is mentioned at all."
- 1 To discard, get rid of, or cancel; to completely put an end to something. idiomatic, informal, transitive
"They had put many hundreds of hours into the project before it was deep-sixed by management."
- 2 To submerge (something) in water. idiomatic, informal, transitive, uncommon
Example
More examples"They had put many hundreds of hours into the project before it was deep-sixed by management."
Etymology
First use appears c. 1929 as a noun, most likely from the nautical cry by the deep six indicating a depth of six fathoms (36 feet, 11 metres) as measured by a sounding line (a depth at which something thrown overboard would be difficult to recover), though possibly also a reference to the common depth of graves (six feet). Attested since the 1950s as a verb.