Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. the River Thames in London; thus over the water, on the other side of the River Thames, usu. on the south bank; also attrib.

1592		Groundworke of Conny-catching D3: He went to the waterside, and tooke a Skuller and was set ouer the water into S. Georges fields.
1600		Look About You xxvii: glo.: Which way will Fauconbridge? fau.: Over the water, and So with all speed I may to Stepney.
1656		Mennis & Smith et al. ‘In Praise of Fat Men’ in Wit and Drollery 89: Let us look ore the water there, Where guts are carried to the Beare: I meane that London spoiling burrough, Which you to Kent must ride clean thorough.
1722		Defoe Hist. of Colonel Jack (1723) 25: We [...] got a Sculler for a Penny to carry us over the Water to St. Mary Overs Stairs where we Landed.
1734		C. Johnson Hist. of Highwaymen &c 455: We cross’d the Water at Kew Ferry.
1749		Proceedings Old Bailey 9 Dec. 7/1: There was a man taken up for a robbery over the water.
1786		Life of Fanny Davies 49: She was immediately carried over the water [i.e. from Southwark to the City] , taken before a magistrate, and [...] committed for trial.
1786		Mr Thompson Female Amazon 31: She was immediately taken over the water [i.e. from Southwark to the City].
1796		Sporting Mag. Dec. IX 163/1: Dear Jack, you know / I cannot cross the water*. [footnote] *‘Cross the water,’ is intended to be taken in a double sense – either to cross the water to the continent, or the Thames to the King’s Bench Prison.
1808		B. Bradshaw Hist. of Billy Bradshaw 6: I arrived at Southwark in the evening [...] I found London the other side of the water.
1816		Proc. Old Bailey 18 Sept. 378/1: Donnelly said he should go and live over the water, until it was all settled; for he was suspected of giving information against the persons [...] I had some conversation with Vaughan, and he several times asked me over the water, and at last I did go, and we went to where Donnelly lodged.
1820		‘Peter Corcoran’ ‘King Tims the First’ in Fancy 16: Ragged days and hungry nights / Forc’d me o’er the water.
1829		‘The Righteous Peeler’ in C. Hindley James Catnach (1878) 210: With my false-swearing look, / They’re [i.e. villains] dragged across the water.
1832		Satirist (London) 2 Sept. 286/3: [used of the Fleet prison, on the bank of the Fleet River, London] Far over the wave some in transports are sent, / To stock the wild land, and perhaps to repent; / But not one has there been, tho' it sounds rather odd, / In a transport sent over the water—to quod.
1835		Dickens ‘A Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle’ in Slater Dickens’ Journalism I (1994) 433: He come in here last Vensday, which by the bye he’s a going over the water to-night – hows’ever that’s neither here nor there.
1836		London Standard 8 Sept. 1/5: On the other side of the water [i.e. Southwark, south of the Thames] the guardians had allowed the poor [...] to go out on the Sabbath evening.
1845		J. Lindridge Sixteen-String Jack 125: Chrissy odsbuds, I’ll on with my duds, / And over the water we’ll flare.
1849		Hereford Jrnl 26 Sept. 4/3: He accordingly placed it at the disposal of the Bishop of london, together with another hundred pounds for the other side of the water, Southwark.
1859		G.A. Sala Twice Round the Clock 272: They are performing ‘Never Too Late To Mend,’ now, over the water [i.e. at the Royal Victoria Theatre, Waterloo].
1865		R.S. Surtees Facey Romford’s Hounds 164: Figuring under her assumed name of Gertrude Dalrymple at the Royal Amphitheatre over the water.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 12/2: Seated in the bar-parlor were some six or eight ‘guns’ who had seceded from the regular ‘meet’ house on both sides of the water.
1866		Sportsman 13 Oct. 2/1: Notes on News [...] Are his feelings those of [the] ‘heavy father’ of over-the-water theatres.
1869		J. Greenwood Seven Curses of London 315: It is not the music-hall of the vulgar East-end or ‘over the water’ that presents [...] the peculiar features here spoken of.
1872		Proc. Old Bailey 6 May 80: I came away from the other side of the water at 4.30, and when I got home it had just gone 6.
1888–94		‘Walter’ My Secret Life (1966) V 977: ‘Do you live about here?’ said she. ‘No, the other side of the water.’.
1899		C. Rook Hooligan Nights 146: Ginger, who sold newspapers on the other side of the water.
1906		O.C. Malvery Soul Market 54: We’ll go across the water to the L— spike.
1935		R.T. Hopkins Life and Death at the Old Bailey 221: The year is 1891 and the locale of our melancholy story is ‘over the water’ in South Lambeth.
1941		V. Davis Phenomena in Crime 230: The thieves [...] live the other side of the water.
1966		B. Reckord Skyvers I ii: My dad says word of this gets round and soon I’ll ’ave to go over the water to find work.
1970		G.F. Newman Sir, You Bastard 189: ‘Where does he hang around?’ ‘This side of the water.’.
1985		A. Payne ‘Minder on the Orient Express’ Minder [TV script] 16: A flash little twerp from south of the water. It’s time somebody chased him back over Battersea Bridge.
1997		‘Q’ Deadmeat 258: I decided to agree with what he said until we were over the water [i.e. north of the Thames].

2. (also big water, the wave) the Atlantic Ocean, occas. the Pacific (see cite 1828, 1874); thus across / over the water, in America / Britain / Europe / Australia.

1729		J. Gay Polly I v: Bless my eye-sight what do I see? [...] Miss Polly Peachum! mercy upon me! Child, what brought you on this side of the water?
[1776		in F. Moore Songs and Ballads of the Amer. Revolution (1855) 142: The folks on t’other side of the wave, / Have beef as well as you, sirs].
1828		Sussex Advertiser 14 Apr. 4/3: He’ll run a chance of getting himself sent on an excursion free gratis for nothing across the water [i.e transported to Australia].
1838		W.N. Glascock Land Sharks and Sea Gulls II 111: I’m as good a cracksman as the best of ye [...] but I had the misfortun’ to be lagged one day, and was sent across the water.
1840		T. Haliburton Clockmaker III 206: As we approached Boston, Mr. Slick said, Ah, squire, now you will see as pretty a city as we have this side of the water.
1850		Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 6 Apr. n.p.: As for our friends from across the water, tip us your mawleys.
1853		G.J. Whyte-Melville Digby Grand (1890) 45: Like all our brethren ‘over the water,’ he soon accomodated himself to such customs and usages as were new to him.
1860		T. Haliburton Season Ticket 10: There is nothen sharp on this side of the water, unless it’s policemen.
1874		Western Dly Press 1 Apr. 3/6: Across the Water. Every year [...] 30,000 persons leave our shores for Canada and British America and anotjher 30,000 for Australia, New Zealand.
1883		Hants. Teleg. 8 Sept. 2/6: Across the Water ‘Friend after friend departs; who hath not lost a friend?’.
1886		Washington Standard (Olympia, WA) 30 June 6/2: ‘There’s my niece, as dacent a reared little girl as ever crossed the water [...] the “Paddy girl”’.
1903		J. London People of the Abyss 8: A man in trouble, or a high-class criminal from across the water, was what he took my measure for.
1917		A. Conan Doyle His Last Bow in Baring-Gould (1968) II 798: I want to get over the water as soon as you do.
1928		C. McKay Home to Harlem 6: France is the only country I’ve struck yet this side of the water.
1934		H. Miller Tropic of Cancer (1963) 186: One of the big muck-a-mucks from the other side of the water had decided to make economies.
1972		(con. 1916) G. Swarthout Tin Lizzie Troop (1978) 170: Now, where I’d rather be is over the Big Water – La Belle Fransay!
1983		V. Bloom ‘Show Dem’ in Touch Mi, Tell Mi 60: [dedicated to all black children in British schools] Wi parents come from cross de wata.
2009		Intelligent Life Spring 77/2: His attention has supposedly shifted across the water to his new toy, the Wall Street Journal.
2024		B. Dreyer A Word About 16 Sept. 🌐 [O]n the other side of the Big Water, folks like to use the word ‘mental’ as slang along the lines of ‘bonkers,’ ‘nuts,’ and ‘one Little Eyolf short of a full Ibsen,’ which I suspect gives many if not most Americans the shivers.

3. the English Channel.

1730		Hist. of Col. Francis Charteris 50: Seeing that there was nothing to be done on the other side of the Water [i.e. in Brussels], he hurry’d away to London.
1822		D. Carey Life in Paris 29: As some elegantly express themselves on this side of the water.
1861		M.E. Braddon Trail of the Serpent 249: They do drop their h’s over the water.
1890		Sporting Times 19 Apr. 1/2: [He] is irretrievably doomed among Frenchmen, and we quite expect Jules Simon to be nicknamed le Deutscher before long. Such are the owls on the other side of the water.
1905		H.G. Wells Kipps (1952) 124: Coote [...] asked Kipps if he had been over the water very much. Kipps [...] thought very likely he’d have a run over to Boulogne soon.

4. (Irish) the Irish Sea.

1812		Spirit of Irish Wit 96: Irish peasants come to work at the harvest [...] ‘Ah! Paddy! I am glad to see you on the other side of the water’.
1841		Freeman’s Jrnl 25 Sept. 3/3: [He] wished Murphy and his countrymen were the other side of the water.
1867		Cumberland Pacquet 23 Apr. 8/5: An Irish Elopement — A young couple from ‘over-the-water’ were lodged [...] in the Western police-office, Glasgow, after a spree.
1878		Isle of Man Times 13 Apr. 2/4: The ‘rows’ on the School Committee are known and canvassed on the other side of the water.
1946		R. Grinstead They Dug a Hole 8: Do you think we’re really across the wawter? [sic] Do you?
1969		(ref. to 1930s) R. Greacen Even Without Irene 29: The writings of journalists, both local ones and those from ‘across the water.’.
2012		D. O’Donnell Locked Ward (2013) 113: He was equally unforthcoming about how or why he had come over the water and settled in Scotland.

5. (UK black) Bayswater, London W2.

1956		S. Selvon Lonely Londoners 25: ‘Which part you living?’ [...] ‘In the Water. Bayswater to you until you living in the city for at least two years.’.
1988		S. Selvon Eldorado West One 29: moses: Anywhere from the Water is far for me. galahad: You mean Bayswater, where we is now? moses: The Water. You will learn. The Arch is Marble Arch, the Grove is Ladbroke Grove.

6. the River Mersey in Liverpool.

1913		Liverpool Echo 18 Feb. 4/3: Hooliganism Across the Water. Birkenhead maintains an unsavory reputation for Saturday night scenes of disorder.
1980		J. McClure Spike Island (1981) 512: My mate’s going soon, and he lives over the water.
2001		K. Sampson Outlaws (ms.) 23: Some lads from over the water that used to go to the aways with us.