What Is A Poop Deck & Does My House Have One?

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We often have sunset drinks on our upper balcony, overlooking the beautiful waters of Moreton Bay. A passer-by remarked how lovely it must be having drinks “up there on the poop deck.”

WE knew what she meant, but our neighbour queried, “is that the part of the ship where the toilet is?” 

Of course, the toilets are actually elsewhere. The poop deck is the part where the Captain stands, with his officers, to observe the goings-on on board! But officially ….

According to my 20 volume Oxford Dictionary, the “poop” is “the aftermost part of a ship; the stern; also, the aftermost and highest deck, often forming the roof of the cabin built on the stern.” 

It derives from similar sounding words in Old French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Latin. 

Its first recorded English usage is in William Caxton’s “The Book of the Faytes of Armes and Chivalrye” in 1489: “The pouppe whiche is the hindermost partye of the shippe.”

Caxton is said to have brought the first printing press to England and, in fact, did not actually write the book. He translated a French military manual “Le livre des fais d'armes et de chevalerie” written by a woman, Christine de Pizan.

The first recorded use of “poop deck” is in 1840, in RH Dana’s sea-going memoir “Two Years Before the Mast: “A large clumsy ship … with her topmasts stayed forward, and high poop-deck.”

So, there you go!!!

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