Definition of "bluejacket"

bluejacket

noun
plural bluejackets
1. (nautical) A seaman of a British warship
  Quotations
  It never entered his mind that here was a matter which from its extreme questionableness, it was his duty as a loyal blue-jacket to report in the proper quarter.
  1924, Herman Melville, chapter 13, in Billy Budd‎, London: Constable & Co.
  ‘ […] I’m not sure’, she continued, ‘that I won’t throw myself overboard, for the mere pleasure of being rescued by a blue-jacket […] ’
  1928, Virginia Woolf, chapter 4, in Orlando: A Biography, London: The Hogarth Press; republished as Orlando: A Biography (eBook no. 0200331h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, July 2015
  The Navy and the Indian tribes up and down the Coast took part in the races, the Navy rowing their heavy ship's boats round from Esquimalt Harbour, manned by blue-jackets, while smart little pinnaces “pip-pipped” along commanded by young midshipmen.
  1942, Emily Carr, “Regatta”, in The Book of Small
2. (nautical) An enlisted man in the US Navy.
  Quotations
  […] drift like tear-starting smoke across these exciting pages written by a bluejacket of the U.S. Navy.
  1939, Fred J. Buenzle, Arthur Grove Day, Bluejacket: An Autobiography, page 12
3. A uniformed policeman.
  Quotations
  He told me that Buster took her face 'bout right off. Said there's guts and hair everyplace. There's a platoon or so of Payton's bluejackets up there on the View now.
  1991, Stephen King, Needful Things