arm-chest

plural arm-chests

1. historicalnauticalA portable chest for storing weapons or tools on a ship.

   […] 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;

   1831, John Barrow, chapter 3, in The Eventful History of the Mutiny and Piratical Seizure of H.M.S. Bounty,, London: John Murray, page 87

   3 more examples

   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;

   1724, Daniel Defoe, chapter 11, in A General History of the Pyrates, London: T. Warner, page 265

   […] 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.

   1849, Herman Melville, chapter 20, in Mardi, volume 1, New York: Harper, page 79

   […] 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.

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