South Sean.
/ˌsaʊθ ˈsiː/, U.S. /ˈsaʊθ ˈsi/ a. Any of the waters bounding the south of England to the east, south, or west; spec. the English Channel. Obsolete.
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the world > the earth > water > sea or ocean > channel > [noun] > English Channel
South SeaOE
mid-channel1518
sleeve1574
the Channel1588
silver streak1879
OE Ælfric Catholic Homilies: 2nd Ser. (Cambr. Gg.3.28) ix. 78 On ðam dagum rixode Æþelbyrht cyning on cantwarebyrig riclice, and his rice wæs astreht fram ðære micclan ea humbre, oð suðsæ.
lOE Bounds (Sawyer 274) in W. de G. Birch Cartularium Saxonicum (1885) I. 546 Ðis synt þara xxx hida land gemæro to Cawelburnan on Wiht... On suð sæ on Eadgylses muþan... And lang Cawelburnan utt on norð sæ.
a1450 St. Etheldreda (Faust.) l. 48 in C. Horstmann Altengl. Legenden (1881) 2nd Ser. 283 (MED) Westsexe..vpon þe sowtheside & þe west-syde..hadde þe grette sowthe-see.
?a1475 (?a1425) tr. R. Higden Polychron. (Harl. 2261) (1869) II. 37 The side of the sowthe see of Briteyne.
1478 W. Worcester Itineraries (Corpus Cambr. 210) (1969) 124 Branston [= Branscombe] per .8. miliaria de Axmy[n]ster et per .4. miliara de le southsee.
1512 Act 4 Hen. VIII c. 1 §1 The haven of Brest lyeth streight ayenst the South see costes of..Cornwall.
1573 T. Twyne tr. H. Llwyd Breuiary of Britayne f. 78 At ye South Sea lieth Tenbigh, as Englishmen terme it.
1612 J. Speed Theatre of Empire of Great Brit. ii. i. 99/1 This admirable trench began at Bassingwerke in Flintshire, betweene Chester and Ruthlan, and ran along the hils to the South sea, a little from Bristow.
1676 A. Sammes Britannia Antiqua Illustrata 59 Meneg, a part of Cornwal, which of the South Sea does make another direct Horn, is also of a Phoenician derivation.
b. The sea to the south of Europe; the Mediterranean. Obsolete.
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the world > the earth > water > sea or ocean > specific seas > [noun] > Mediterranean Sea
the great sea1382
sea of middle eartha1387
South Seaa1398
Mediterrany?a1475
Mediterranean Sea?1556
mid-earth sea1559
Midland Sea1579
Mediterrane1582
Mediterranean1621
middle-land sea1650
Great Lake1857
Mare Nostrum1921
Med?1942
a1398 J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum (BL Add. 27944) (1975) II. xiv. ii. 695 Hote vapoure and moiste comeþ out of þe souþe see.
1516 R. Fabyan New Chron. Eng. (1811) v. lxxvii. 56 In the South see of Myddell Erth.
1553 J. Brende tr. Q. Curtius Rufus Hist. v. f. 78v Whiche ryuer of Medus beyng muche lesse then thesame whiche it doth receyue runneth from thence towardes the south Sea.
2.
a. In plural. The seas of the southern hemisphere; esp. the South Pacific Ocean. Also: the islands in these seas; spec. Polynesia.
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the world > the earth > water > sea or ocean > specific seas > [noun] > of southern hemisphere
South Seasa1527
a1527 R. Thorne in R. Hakluyt Divers Voy. (1582) sig. B3 Vntill they come to the..South seas of the Indees occidentalls.
1601 R. Johnson tr. G. Botero Trauellers Breuiat 25 In these places they made the north and south seas their bounds.
1622 M. Drayton 2nd Pt. Poly-olbion xix. 9 Braue Candish..through the South Seas past, about this earthly Ball.
1697 W. Dampier New Voy. around World x. 295 In the South Seas the Spaniards do make Oakam to chalk their Ships with the husk of the Coco-nut.
1719 D. Defoe Farther Adventures Robinson Crusoe 292 To sail from the Phillippine Islands, away to the South Seas.
1745 P. Thomas (title) A..journal of a voyage to the South-Seas..in H.M.S. Centurion.
1802 J. Pinkerton Mod. Geogr. II. 506 The Grecian..forms, given by artists..to the people of the South seas,..are totally false.
1830 R. Southey in Q. Rev. 43 14 It is the custom to entertain a distinguished visitor with what, in the South Seas, as in modern London, is called a feed.
1866 J. Lindley & T. Moore Treasury Bot. II. 1119/1 Arrowroot..is a favourite ingredient for puddings and cakes in the South Seas.
1876 J. W. Boddam-Whetham Pearls Pacific 121 The natives..did not bring me any ‘oos’, but on my return from the South Seas I managed to obtain a pair.
1891 Daily News 1 Jan. 5/5 To serve as an inter-island steamer in the South Seas.
1924 A. D. H. Smith Porto Bello Gold iv. 59 We'd oughter take him to the South Seas and sell him to the canneybals.
1949 Sci. Monthly Nov. 323/2 One of the pretties and daintiest shells of the South Seas is the olive-shaped mitre, Imbricaria olivaeformis Swainson.
2004 J. Fellowes Snobs (2005) vi. 82 The Prince of Wales..was on a goodwill junket somewhere in the South Seas.
b. In singular. The South Pacific Ocean; †the Pacific Ocean as a whole (obsolete). Also (occasionally): the islands in the South Pacific Ocean; spec. Polynesia. Also figurative.
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the world > the earth > water > sea or ocean > specific seas > [noun] > Pacific Ocean
South Sea1553
Pacific Ocean1568
Pacific1774
the world > the earth > water > sea or ocean > specific seas > [noun] > Pacific Ocean > South Pacific
South Sea1553
Magellanic Sea1602
1553 R. Eden in tr. S. Münster Treat. Newe India To Rdr. sig. aa.vjv The mayne South sea, by the which the Portugales euen at this daye make theyr viage to Calicut, Samora, Madagascar.
1555 R. Eden Disc. Vyage rounde Worlde in tr. Peter Martyr of Angleria Decades of Newe Worlde f. 218v The Spanyardes thought that by this ryuer they might haue passed into the south sea.
a1616 W. Shakespeare As you like It (1623) iii. ii. 193 One inch of delay more, is a South-sea of discouerie. View more context for this quotation
1639 E. Chilmead tr. R. Hues Learned Treat. Globes iii. i. 140 America..is terminated..on the West with..the South Sea.
1665 H. Oldenburg Let. 30 Dec. in R. Boyle Corr. (2001) II. 612 With a boate they went out of a Lake in Canada, into a River, which discharged itselfe Northwest into the Southsea.
1720 T. Hope Ess. Eng. Bubbles in Swearer's-bank p. iv The Ambitious Citizens..plung'd deep in the wealthy Whirlpool of the South-Sea.
1737 S.-Carolina Gaz. 29 Oct. 2/1 Extending in Longitude from the North or Atlantick Ocean, unto the Pacifick or South-Sea.
1771 Encycl. Brit. III. 449/1 [The] Pacific..was called south-sea, because the Spaniards crossed the isthmus of Darien from north to south, when they first discovered it.
1840 Penny Cycl. XVII. 117/1 The name of South Sea has been limited in later times to the southern portion of the Pacific.
1845 C. Darwin Jrnl. (ed. 2) xxi. 505 The introduction of Christianity throughout the South Sea.
1883 Cent. Mag. Mar. 725/1 Short cuts to the South Sea, and porpoise-tailed mermaids, passed out of fashion at about the same time.
1937 A. L. Rowse Sir Richard Grenville vii. 154 Drake had captured 200,000 ducats of the King's property..in his break-through into the South Sea.
1984 P. O'Brian Far Side of World v. 173 The far South Sea lay before him with never a ship's chandler, let alone a dockyard, on its shores.
2002 H. Kamen Empire (2003) v. 197 The first Spanish settlement on the South Sea was the town of Panama.
3. Short for South Sea bonds, scheme, Company, etc.: see Compounds 2.rare after early 18th cent.
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society > trade and finance > stocks and shares > [noun] > specific scheme
South Sea1711
South Sea scheme1720
South Sea bubble1723
1711 Remarks False Libel 29 The Person..has indeed a good Employment, but little in the Funds, except in the South-Sea.
1712 F. Hare Allies & Late Ministry defended against France IV. 58 Has the South-Sea paid the publick Debts? Had not the Creditors rather have their Interests paid them without the Trade?
1718 S. Centlivre Bold Stroke for Wife iv. 35 1st Stock. South-Sea at seven Eighths! who buys?
1721 J. Swift Bubble 23 The Nation too too late will find..Directors Promises but Wind, South-Sea at best a mighty Bubble.
1856 W. Bagehot Lit. Stud. II. 1 The real founder was the grandfather of the historian [sc. Gibbon], who lived in the times of the ‘South Sea’.
1994 C. Nicholson Writing & Rise of Finance ii. 66 The South Sea was not the only object of investors' attentions, and government attempts to preserve its pre-eminence were to prove fatal.
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the world > food and drink > drink > intoxicating liquor > distilled drink > gin > [noun] > kinds of gin
genever1689
South Sea1725
Hollands1753
Old Tom1810
deady1819
schiedam1821
Plymouth gin1854
unsweetened1886
London gin1920
Plymouth1920
ogogoro1982
1725 New Canting Dict. South-Sea, a strong distill'd Liquor, so called by the Inhabitants and Clients of Newgate, &c.
Compounds
C1.
a. attributive with the sense ‘of or relating to the South Seas or the inhabitants of the South Sea Islands’. Cf. South Sea Island n., South Sea Islander n.
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1622 R. Hawkins Observ. Voiage South Sea lxiii. 157 The advantage, which all the south-sea shippes haue of all those built in our North sea.
1728 W. Betagh Voy. round World 280 He undertook the South-Sea voyage by permission of king Lewis the XIVth, and was there about six years before us.
1792 W. Bligh Voy. to South Sea 262 The Harpy, a South Sea Whaler, with 500 barrels of spermaceti.
1813 J. C. Prichard Res. Physical Hist. Man vi. §6. 312 He [sc. Cook] regarded their dialect as a branch of the South Sea language.
1847 Ld. Tennyson Princess iii. 60 Cramp'd under worse than South-sea-isle taboo.
1847 H. Melville Omoo vii. 44 With them also came a stranger..a white man, in the South Sea girdle, and tattooed in the face.
1897 F. L. Shaw Story Austral. iii. 22 A delicacy..altogether wanting in other South Sea tribes.
1938 R. Finlayson Brown Man's Burden 30 They can do South Sea hulas... Ka pai! they're very good.
1988 New Scientist 25 Feb. 66/3 All South Sea pearls are assessed in Japan.
2001 Internat. Wristwatch No. 64. 42 The Tiki (Son of the Sun) character celebrated by South Sea peoples such as the Polynesians, as their ancestral father is a near exact analogue of the Inca God of the Sun, Kon Tiki.
b. † South Sea mountain n. Obsolete slang gin.
South Sea arrowroot n. now rare the pia, Tacca leontopetaloides (formerly T. pinnatifida), a plant grown on some Pacific islands for its starchy tubers; (also) †the starch produced from this plant (obsolete).
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the world > plants > particular plants > cultivated or valued plants > particular food plant or plant product > yielding condiments or used in food preparation > [noun] > starch plants
sago1555
sago-tree1681
pia1769
sago-palm1769
South Sea arrowroot1844
caladium1845
Tacca1866
sacsac1947
1844 Home Missionary Mag. July 202 Mrs John Rout..continues to have on sale, for the benefit of the Home Missionary Society..the South-Sea Arrowroot, in packets of 1lb. each.
1883 Australasian Med. Gaz. Oct. 1/2 An application of the scraped tuberous root of the pia, or South Sea arrowroot (Tacca pinnatifida), has been used by the natives of the Society Islands to the diseased skin.
1923 Geogr. Jrnl. 62 318 The soil..—an admirable compound for the coconut palm to flourish in, and for the South Sea arrowroot (Tacca pinnatifida).
South Sea cloth n. cloth made from the inner bark of various trees in the Pacific Islands, as the jackfruit tree, breadfruit tree, or paper mulberry.
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1770 J. Banks Jrnl. Oct. in Endeavour Jrnl. (1962) II. v. 187 On his being told that in this place every different nation wore their own countrey dress, he desird to have his, on which South Sea cloth was sent for on board.
1850 Jrnl. Ethnol. Soc. 2 260 The process..greatly resembles that of making the Egyptian papyrus, and still more closely the preparation of the South-sea cloth.
1978 F. H. Pettit & R. M. Pettit Mexican Folk Toys 66/2 The South Sea cloth is (or was) used for clothing and for making very large panels block printed in decorative patterns.
ΚΠ
1725 New Canting Dict. South-Sea Mountain, Geneva.
1726 Tavern Scuffle 8 You know the ill Effects of your South-Sea Mountain, and therefore choose better Liquors for your own drinking.
1785 F. Grose Classical Dict. Vulgar Tongue South Sea, mountain, gin.
1858 A. Mayhew Paved with Gold iii. i. 256 But, mind you, she's a rum 'un, and as fond of ‘a line of the old author’ (brandy), or a drop of the ‘South Sea Mountain’ (gin), as any ‘doxy’ (woman) in Stafford.
South Sea rose n. now rare the oleander, Nerium oleander.
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?1740 Importance Jamaica to Great-Brit. 35 With the South-sea Rose; The Flower is very beautiful.., the leaf and plant is something like the Osier.
1886 E. W. Dawson Isles of Sea iv. 69 The rose-geranium, the white-jessamine, and the oleander or South Sea rose,—both beautiful and odorous—are great favourites.
1907 Messenger Mar. 267 Behind the shrubs—the crape myrtle, and the South-Sea roses (which non-Jamaicans call oleander)..—were the windows of an unquestionably real convent chapel.
South Sea tea n. any of several kinds of evergreen holly (genus Ilex), from which the leaves are infused to make a tea, esp. the South American species I. paraguariensis (cf. maté n.3 3) and (in later use) the yapon, I. vomitoria, a plant of similar appearance found in south-eastern North America; (also) the tea made from any of these plants, now esp. I. vomitoria, used as an emetic by certain groups of North American Indians.
ΚΠ
1728 E. Chambers Cycl. at Paraguay A celebrated Plant,..better known, of late, among us, under the Denomination of South-Sea Tea.
1829 Mag. Nat. Hist. 1 433 The leaves of the South Sea tea tree (Ilex vomitoria) are made, by the natives of the South Sea Islands, into a medicinal tea, which at certain times of the year they drink to excess.
1901 A. Lounsberry Southern Wild Flowers & Trees 315 The Carolina, or South Sea tea, as also this holly is called, occurs most generally near salt water.
1979 C. M. Hudson Black Drink 6 In England the imported leaves were made into a beverage called South-Sea tea.
2008 S. White Vanished Gardens 151 Sweet bushes vanished now were covered with straw in the winter—thunbergias, mimosas, tree sage, and South Sea tea.
C2.
a. attributive with the sense ‘of or relating to the South Sea Company’ (see South Sea Company n. at Compounds 2b).
ΚΠ
1711 View Coasts Limits South-Sea Co. 207 Of the..Countries and Islands within the Limits of the South-Sea-Act.
1721 N. Amhurst Terræ-filius 25 Feb. I conceive the Sum of the Charge against the South-Sea Directors to be this.
1809 R. Langford Introd. Trade 57 South sea stock 89 means, that 89l. will purchase 100l. of this stock.
1848 Sci. Amer. 22 Jan. 139/2 Mining stock rose faster than ever the South Sea, Mississippi or Eastern land shares.
1911 H. G. Paul J. Dennis iii. 61 [Dennis] strongly condemned the South Sea enterprise long before the crash came.
1991 Nation 16 Sept. 303/1 The investors in South Sea obligations..were eventually rescued by the conversion of half of their claims into claims on the Exchequer.
b. † South Sea dream n. Obsolete an illusion of wealth or prosperity such as that created by the temporarily high stock prices of the South Sea Company.
South Sea bubble n. now historical a speculative boom in the shares of the South Sea Company in 1720 which ended with the failure of the company and a general financial collapse (cf. South Sea scheme n.).
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society > trade and finance > stocks and shares > [noun] > specific scheme
South Sea1711
South Sea scheme1720
South Sea bubble1723
1723 T. Bradbury 28 Serm. xiii. 171 You saw the French Folly [in the Mississippi Whim] before you begun your own [the South-Sea Bubble].
1771 Encycl. Brit. III. 632/2 Things were in this situation, when..the South Sea bubble was projected.
1874 Friend 9 May 299/2 The South Sea bubble was only the greatest among a crowd of great bubbles.
2003 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 12 June 68/4 Jones is extremely illuminating about the ‘bubble’ which the Scottish financier John Low promoted in France in 1718–1720 (just before Britain's South Sea bubble).
South Sea Company n. now historical a joint-stock trading company incorporated in 1711 and given exclusive trading rights for slaves and other goods in Spanish America, in return for taking up a large share of the unfunded British National Debt.
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society > occupation and work > business affairs > a business or company > [noun] > companies involved in specific business > trading in specific place
company1599
East India Company1608
South Sea Company1708
EIC1730
John Company1782
north-west1837
1708 Dialogue Jest & Earnest 7 Were a South-Sea Company establish'd, it would make the Trade of our Country as Universal as our Taxes.
1711 (title) A view of the coasts, countries and islands within the limits of the South-Sea-Company.
1878 E. Thompson Hist. Eng. xxxix. 275 The South Sea Company..for the purpose of reducing the National Debt, engaged..to buy up certain annuities.
1989 Smithsonian Dec. 156/2 And it was just such men who in 1710 founded the South Sea Company, greatest of all joint-stock enterprises.
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1743 E. Young Complaint: Night the Fourth 7 As wealthy as a South-Sea Dream.
1857 ‘G. Eliot’ in Westm. Rev. Jan. 28 South-Sea dreams and illegal percentage.
South Sea scheme n. now historical a stockjobbing scheme established by the South Sea Company in 1720 for trading in the southern hemisphere to repay the British national debt, which ended with the failure of the company and a general financial collapse (cf. South Sea bubble n.).
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society > trade and finance > stocks and shares > [noun] > specific scheme
South Sea1711
South Sea scheme1720
South Sea bubble1723
1720 A. Hutcheson (title) A collection of calculations and remarks relating to the South Sea scheme & stock.
1858 O. W. Holmes Autocrat of Breakfast-table v. 134 During the stock-gambling mania of the South-Sea Scheme.
1922 W. H. Ukers All about Coffee 572 Dr. Jno. Radcliff..was a rash speculator in the South Sea Scheme.
2005 P. Whybrow Amer. Mania 33 When the king and the British Parliament began actively championing the South Sea scheme, speculative fever was not far behind.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2011; most recently modified version published online June 2022).
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n.OE