Green’s Dictionary of Slang

tarry-breeks n.

a sailor.

1785		W. Forbes Dominie Deposed 14: For tarry-breeks should ay gae free.
1786		Burns ‘A Dream’ in Poetical Works (1871) 43: Young, royal Tarry Breeks, I learn, Ye’ve lately come athwart her.
1830		N. Ames Mariner’s Sketches 174: The ‘tarry jackets! kept their skins tolerably well filled with good liquor.
1837		‘Who Milked My Cow?’ Bentley’s Misc. Jan. 69: ‘I was never accused of such a thing, please your honour, before, sir,’ said tarrybrecks.
1855		C. Kingsley Westward Ho III 296: No old tarry-breeks of a sea-dog, like thy dad!
1879		Cheshire Obs. 15 Mar. 3/2: ‘Young Royal Tarry-breeks,’ William had been jocularly called by Robert Burns fifty years before when there was a popular belief that he would [...] become a stout sailor.
1898		Pall Mall Gaz. 9 July 4/2: Shakespeare had overheard in the theatre some tarry-breeks narrating his adventures.
1906		Lichfield Mercury 13 Apr. 8/4: Of the earlier sailor princes [...] there was none so popular as Prince William Henry [...] ‘the jolly young tarry-breeks’.
1925		Western Dly Press 9 July 12/6: There would be brown-faced, horn-fisted tarry-breeks aloft on the yards.