TO SPLICE THE MAINBRACE, verb. phr. (nautical).—To serve an allowance of grog; hence to drink.
1833. MARRYAT, Peter Simple, I. xv. With a bottle of rum, procured at the time they ‘SPLICED THE MAIN-BRACE.’
1877. MARTINEAU, Autobiography, vol. ii. Appendix, p. 480. Yesterday the captain shouted, for the first time, SPLICE THE MAIN-BRACE (give out grog).
