Green’s Dictionary of Slang

water, the n.

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.

[UK]Groundworke of Conny-catching D3: He went to the waterside, and tooke a Skuller and was set ouer the water into S. Georges fields.
[UK]Look About You xxvii: glo.: Which way will Fauconbridge? fau.: Over the water, and So with all speed I may to Stepney.
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.
[UK]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.
[UK]C. Johnson Hist. of Highwaymen &c 455: We cross’d the Water at Kew Ferry.
[UK]Proceedings Old Bailey 9 Dec. 7/1: There was a man taken up for a robbery over the water.
[UK]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.
[UK]Mr Thompson Female Amazon 31: She was immediately taken over the water [i.e. from Southwark to the City].
[UK]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.
[UK]B. Bradshaw Hist. of Billy Bradshaw 6: I arrived at Southwark in the evening [...] I found London the other side of the water.
[UK]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.
[UK]‘Peter Corcoran’ ‘King Tims the First’ in Fancy 16: Ragged days and hungry nights / Forc’d me o’er the water.
[UK] ‘The Righteous Peeler’ in C. Hindley James Catnach (1878) 210: With my false-swearing look, / They’re [i.e. villains] dragged across the water.
[UK]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.
[UK]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.
[UK]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.
[UK]J. Lindridge Sixteen-String Jack 125: Chrissy odsbuds, I’ll on with my duds, / And over the water we’ll flare.
[UK]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.
[UK]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].
[UK]R.S. Surtees Facey Romford’s Hounds 164: Figuring under her assumed name of Gertrude Dalrymple at the Royal Amphitheatre over the water.
[UK]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.
[UK]Sportsman 13 Oct. 2/1: Notes on News [...] Are his feelings those of [the] ‘heavy father’ of over-the-water theatres.
[UK]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.
[UK]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.
[UK]‘Walter’ My Secret Life (1966) V 977: ‘Do you live about here?’ said she. ‘No, the other side of the water.’.
[UK]C. Rook Hooligan Nights 146: Ginger, who sold newspapers on the other side of the water.
[UK]O.C. Malvery Soul Market 54: We’ll go across the water to the L— spike.
[UK]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.
[UK]V. Davis Phenomena in Crime 230: The thieves [...] live the other side of the water.
[UK]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.
[UK]G.F. Newman Sir, You Bastard 189: ‘Where does he hang around?’ ‘This side of the water.’.
[UK]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.
[UK]‘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.

[UK]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?
[[US] 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].
[UK]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].
[UK]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.
[US]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.
[US]Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 6 Apr. n.p.: As for our friends from across the water, tip us your mawleys.
[UK]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.
[US]T. Haliburton Season Ticket 10: There is nothen sharp on this side of the water, unless it’s policemen.
[UK]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.
[UK]Hants. Teleg. 8 Sept. 2/6: Across the Water ‘Friend after friend departs; who hath not lost a friend?’.
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”’.
[US]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.
[UK]A. Conan Doyle His Last Bow in Baring-Gould (1968) II 798: I want to get over the water as soon as you do.
[US]C. McKay Home to Harlem 6: France is the only country I’ve struck yet this side of the water.
[US]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.
[US](con. 1916) G. Swarthout Tin Lizzie Troop (1978) 170: Now, where I’d rather be is over the Big Water – La Belle Fransay!
[UK]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.
[UK]Intelligent Life Spring 77/2: His attention has supposedly shifted across the water to his new toy, the Wall Street Journal.

3. the English Channel.

[UK]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.
[UK]D. Carey Life in Paris 29: As some elegantly express themselves on this side of the water.
[UK]M.E. Braddon Trail of the Serpent 249: They do drop their h’s over the water.
[UK]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.
[UK]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.

[Ire]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’.
[Ire]Freeman’s Jrnl 25 Sept. 3/3: [He] wished Murphy and his countrymen were the other side of the water.
[UK]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.
[UK]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.
[UK]R. Grinstead They Dug a Hole 8: Do you think we’re really across the wawter? [sic] Do you?
[Ire] (ref. to 1930s) R. Greacen Even Without Irene 29: The writings of journalists, both local ones and those from ‘across the water.’.
[UK]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.

[WI]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.’.
[WI]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.

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

In phrases

cross the water (v.)

to suffer transportation to Australia (for seven or fourteen years).

[UK]Pierce Egan’s Life in London 15 Jan. 406/3: For he’ll cross the water for that much [...] (holding up seven fingers, to signify the same number of years).
over the water

1. (UK Und.) in the King’s Bench Prison, Southwark [Southwark being south of the Thames].

[UK]‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc.
[UK]W. Phillips Wild Tribes of London 103: Oh! that’s Tom Bradley – he’s just come from ‘over the water’ (It was in this delicate manner that ‘our friend’ alluded to Mr. Bradley’s absence [...] for the last seven years).

2. see sense 1 above.

3. see sense 2 above.