Meanings
- Having all the qualifications and abilities one could possibly ask for (or almost, anyway)
Claude Augustus had not been in prison, so he said; was not a bigamist, was never sick at sea, and all those things they ask Tommies were all right about him, anyhow.
1901, Ménie Muriel Dowie, Love and His Mask, page 1062 more examples
My final thought on all of my local and national on-air colleagues that I've befriended and respected for all these decades: I'm not knocking them, but while most morning show hosts and radio and TV sportscasters and anchors went home to their wives and kids an hour or more outside of Toronto to play it safe, I went out. I lived it. I always answered the bell and was never sick at sea. Well, almost never.
2017, John Gallagher, Big League Babble OnFarmington School is forever endeared to us for having given us a sailoress secretary, who is 'never never sick at sea,' and is a member of our family—Miss Eleanor Cushman, of New Bedrord whaling ancestry.
2022, Wilfred T. Grenfell, Forty Years for Labrador
Origin
A phrase that comes from a verse in H.M.S. Pinafore, an 1878 comic opera: Captain: I am never known to quail At the fury of a gale, and I'm never, never sick at sea! All: What, never? Captain: No, never! All: What, never? Captain: Hardly ever!
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
never sick at sea. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/never%20sick%20at%20sea
“never sick at sea.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/never%20sick%20at%20sea. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “never sick at sea,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/never%20sick%20at%20sea.
Source: never sick at sea on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.