deep six

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.

• "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."
• "I look at Kenny who looks at Jimmy...the three of us join Colm; we overpower Ingy and give him the deep six."
• "Aaron was sitting up in the backseat poking his fingers at his Game Boy, behaving fairly decently since he'd been warned that if he went into any kind of tantrum or mood, the Game Boy got the deep six."
• "The chief named Ape—pretty good name, too—said, “This guy's bothering you, Pan, Happy'll give him the deep six.” “Oh, no,” the monkey said."
• "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."
• "Between the Brits and the Maharajas, there's pretty good reason to believe that at least 100,000 tigers got the deep six over the past hundred years."
• "Your second appointment is 15 minutes late, so you chip away at your delay reading. You scan contents and tear out articles you want to keep. Wham! The rest goes into the deep six."
• "Down in the deep six with eyes frozen till Judgment Day. There they lie, encased in ice beneath the seas like statues of stone awaiting the Day of Judgment to blast them free."

• Davy Jones's locker
• eighty-six
• kick into the long grass
• pull the plug
• six feet under