CUTTING HIS PAINTER. Making off suddenly or clandestinely, or "departed this life."
CUTTING IN. Making the special directions for taking the blubber off a whale, which is flinched by taking off circularly ribbons of the skin with blubber attached; the animal being made to turn in the water as the purchases at the mast-heads heave it upwards.
CUTTING-OUT. A night-meal or forage in the officer's pantry.
CUTTING OUT or In. In polar phraseology, is performed by sawing canals in a floe of ice, to enable a ship to regain open water.
CUTTING RIGGING. This includes the act of measuring it.
CUTTLE-FISH. A common marine animal of the genus Sepia, and class Cephalopoda. It has ten tentacles or arms ranged around the mouth, two being of much greater length than the others. When in danger it ejects a black inky substance, darkening the water for some distance around. The oval internal calcareous shell, "cuttle-bone," often found lying on the beach, was formerly much used in pharmacy.
CUTTS. Flat-bottomed horse-ferry boats of a former day.
CUTTY-GUN. A northern term for a short pipe.
CUT-WATER. The foremost part of a vessel's prow, or the sharp part of the knee of a ship's head below the beak. It cuts or divides the water before reaching the bow, which would retard progress. It is fayed to the fore-part of the main stem. (See [Knee of the Head].)
CUVETTE, called also Cunette. A deeper trench cut along the middle of a dry moat; a ditch within a ditch, generally carried down till there be water to fill it.