n_ into a turret ship,
&c.--_Cutting down_ is also a dangerous midshipman's trick, and
sometimes practised by the men: it consists in cutting the laniard of a
cot or hammock in which a person is then asleep, and letting him
fall--_lumpus_--either by the head or the feet.

CUTTING-DOWN LINE. An elliptical curve line used by shipwrights in the
delineation of ships; it determines the depth of all the floor timbers,
and likewise the height of the dead-wood fore and aft. It is limited in
the middle of the ship by the thickness of the floor timbers, and abaft
by the breadth of the keelson, and must be carried up so high upon the
stern as to leave sufficient substance for the breeches of the rising
timbers.

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.

CWM, OR COMB. A British word signifying an inlet, valley, or low place,
where the hilly sides round together in a concave form; the sides of a
_glyn_ being, on the contrary, convex.

CYCLE. A term generally