arm-chest

arm-chest (plural arm-chests)

1. (historical, nautical) A portable chest for storing weapons or tools on a ship.
   • 1724, Daniel Defoe, A General History of the Pyrates, London: T. Warner, Chapter 11, p. 265,

     This Disappointment chagreen’d the Ship’s Company, who were very intent upon their Market; which was reported to be an Arm-Chest full of Gold, and kept with three Keys;

   • 1831, John Barrow, The Eventful History of the Mutiny and Piratical Seizure of H.M.S. Bounty, London: John Murray, Chapter 3, p. 87,

     […] as soon as he had taken charge of the deck, he saw Mr. Hayward, the mate of his watch, lie down on the arm-chest to take a nap;

   • 1849, Herman Melville, Mardi, New York: Harper, Volume 1, Chapter 20, p. 79,

     […] there being no line-and-sinker at hand, I sent Jarl to hunt them up in the arm-chest on the quarter-deck, where doubtless they must be kept.

   • 1859, Charles Dickens, chapter 2, in A Tale of Two Cities, London: Chapman and Hall, […], OCLC 906152507, book I (Recalled to Life), page 4:

     […] he stood on his own particular perch behind the mail, beating his feet, and keeping an eye and a hand on the arm-chest before him, where a loaded blunderbuss lay at the top of six or eight loaded horse-pistols, deposited on a substratum of cutlass.

• charmest, marchest, marchets, matchers