dead man's chest
Buried treasure container
Dead man's chest appears in the pirate shanty "Fifteen men on a dead man's chest, yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum," popularized by Robert Louis Stevenson's *Treasure Island*.
The phrase likely refers to Dead Chest Island in the Virgin Islands, where Blackbeard supposedly marooned sailors.
A dead man's chest can also mean a coffin or, in gaming contexts, a treasure chest containing a corpse.
- pirateMaritime thief or bootlegger
- pirate shipSeafaring raiders' vessel
- treasureValued wealth or keepsake
- Davy JonesSea's personified depths
- Davy Jones' lockerOcean floor for shipwrecks
yo-ho-ho · rum · bottle · sea · coffin · shipwreck · buried treasure · skull · bones · buried · skull and crossbones · gold · doubloons · treasure map · island · plank · Blackbeard · galleon