Batten down the hatches

Meaning

Prepare for trouble.

Origin

The securing of property, especially the covering with protective sheeting, is called 'battening down'. It has a nautical origin and 'battening down' of walkways and hatches was done on ships when bad weather was expected. The earliest known reference to this practise is in William Falconer's An universal dictionary of the marine, 1769:

The battens serve to confine the edges of the tarpaulings close down to the sides of the hatches.

A batten is a strip of wood. Ship's hatches were often open or covered with a wooden grating to allow for ventilation of the lower decks. When bad weather was imminent, the hatches were covered with tarpaulin and the covering was 'battened down', that is, edged with wooden strips to prevent it from blowing off.

The first citation of the explicit use of the phrase 'batten down the hatches' is from the 1883 Chambers Journal:

"Batten down the hatches - quick, men."

See other Nautical Phrases.