Davy Jones, a sailor's familiar name for a malignant sea-spirit or the devil generally. The common phrase 'Davy Jones's locker' is applied to the ocean as the grave of men drowned at sea. A dubious explanation of the name makes it compounded from Duffy, a West Indian negro spirit name, and the scriptural prophet Jonah, in jocular allusion to his somewhat unusual adventures.
Davy Jones
Chambers's Encyclopaedia, Volume 3: Catarrh to Dion, p. 702
Source scan(s): p. 0713