Act I :

• Buttercup's wares:
  • jacky - twists of tobacco soaked in rum (for chewing)
  • soft tommy - a kind of bread
  • chicken and conies - wild rabbits
  • pretty polonies - smoked sausages named, like the sandwich meat, after Bologna, the Italian town where they were first made
• reddest beauty in all Spithead - body of water off Portsmouth
• Dick Deadeye, Bill Bobstay (boatswain), Bob Becket (carpenter's mate) - the last names of these sailors all refer to parts of a ships' ropes or rigging
• foremast hands - those sailors who serve "before the mast" (those below the rank of officer) [see Quarter-deck]
• quarter-deck - the deck to the aft of the mainmast where only commissioned officers may promenade
• ship a selvagee - a hank of rope yarn made into a strap or sling
• Sir Joseph Porter, K.C.B. - Knight Commander of the (Order of the) Bath (high honor)
• bang the loud nine-pounders go - the smallest of the battery of the cannons carried on Royal Navy ships (which also include 18 and 32-pounders)
• pocket borough - refers to a parliamentary seat controlled by a single individual (usually wealthy landowner); these seats were abolished by the Great Reform Act of 1832
• grog - rum diluted with water (from the nickname of the Admiral who began the custom of issuing the drink to sailors, "Old Grog," so called for the grogram cloak he usually wore)
• British tar - slang for sailor
• Cimmerian darkness - according to Homer's Odyssey, the Cimmerians lived in a land where the sun never shines

Act II :

• bumboat woman - boat used to peddle provisions to ships in port
• "jackdaws strut in peacock feathers"; "storks turn out to be but logs"; "bulls are but inflated frogs" - three references to Aesop's fables
• turbot is ambitious brill - kinds of fish, turbot being preferred
• gild the farthing - lowest denomination of British coin at the time
• the prospect is Elysian - in Greek mythology, Elysian fields were the home of the blessed
• cat-o'-nine-tails - (or simply "the cat") - a whip with nine knotted lashes used for punishment
• fo'c'sle - short for "forecastle," the forward part of the ship, usually containing the crew's quarters
• no telephone - the first telephone transmission was in 1876, and the first London exchange opened in June of 1878, a month after Pinafore did