Word.ws English Dictionary

purser rigged and parish damned

purser rigged and parish damned adjective: having joined the United States Navy, either because of destitution or in order to flee problems on land.

Adjective

purser rigged and parish damned

  1. (obsolete, slang) Having joined the United States Navy, either because of destitution or in order to flee problems on land.
    • “Purser rigged and parish damned,” is the sailor saying in the American Navy, when the tyro first mounts the lined frock and blue jacket, aptly manufactured for him in a State Prison ashore.1850, Herman Melville, White-Jacket, page 352

Origin of purser rigged and parish damned

From purser (“ship mate in charge of accounting for passengers aboard”) + rigged (“fixed”) + parish (“meaning church community ashore”) + damned (“forsaken”).

Questions about purser rigged and parish damned

What does purser rigged and parish damned mean?
Purser rigged and parish damned means having joined the United States Navy, either because of destitution or in order to flee problems on land.
What part of speech is purser rigged and parish damned?
Purser rigged and parish damned is an adjective.

Words near purser rigged and parish damned in the dictionary

  1. pursemaker
  2. pursemakers
  3. pursemaking
  4. purseproud
  5. purser
  6. purser rigged and parish damned
  7. purser's crabs
  8. purser's name
  9. pursers
  10. pursership
  11. purserships

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: purser rigged and parish damned (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-purser rigged and parish damned.ogg.

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