Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun One that cuts, especially in tailoring.
  • noun A device or machine that cuts.
  • noun A single-masted, fore-and-aft-rigged sailing vessel with two or more headsails and a mast set somewhat farther aft than that of a sloop.
  • noun A ship's boat, powered by a motor or oars and used for transporting stores or passengers.
  • noun A patrol boat, especially a US Coast Guard ship that is at least 65 feet long and has accommodations for the crew.
  • noun A small sleigh, usually seating one person and drawn by a single horse.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To speak low; whisper; murmur, as a dove.
  • To fondle.
  • noun One who cuts or hews; one who shapes or forms anything by cutting.
  • noun Specifically— Formerly, an officer in the English exchequer whose office it was to provide wood for the tallies, and to cut on them the sums paid. See tally.
  • noun In tailoring, one who measures and cuts out cloth for garments, or cuts it according to measurements made by another.
  • noun A bully; a bravo; a swaggering fellow; a sharper; a robber. Also cuttle.
  • noun That which cuts; an instrument or tool, or a part of one, that cuts: as, a straw-cutter; the cutters of a boring-machine.
  • noun Specifically— The broad chisel-edge of a center-bit, lying between the nicker, or outer knife-edge, and the center, or pin.
  • noun A knife or an indenting-tool used in testing the explosive pressure of powder in large guns. See pressure-gage.
  • noun In diamond-cutting, a wooden hand-tool in which that one of two diamonds undergoing cutting which is least advanced is cemented. The other stone is cemented in the setter, and the two are then rubbed together.
  • noun A wad-punch. E. H. Knight.
  • noun An upright chisel on an anvil; a hack-iron. E. H. Knight.
  • noun A file-chisel. E. H. Knight.
  • noun In agriculture, a colter.
  • noun A fore tooth that cuts, as distinguished from a grinder; an incisor.
  • noun Naut.: A double-banked boat used by ships of war.
  • noun A small vessel with a single mast, a mainsail, a forestaysail, and a jib set to bowsprit end. Cutter-yachts are sloop-rigged vessels, and the name is now generally applied to sloops of considerable draft and comparatively small beam.—4. A small light sleigh, with a single seat for one or two persons, usually drawn by one horse.
  • noun In mining: A joint or crack, generally one which intersects or crosses a better-defined system of cracks or joints in the same rock.
  • noun In coal-mining, the system of joint-planes in the coal which is of secondary importance, being not so well developed as another set called the back, face, or cleat of the coal: generally used in the plural: as, backs and cutters.
  • noun b In mineralogy, a crack in the substance of a crystal, which destroys or greatly lessens its value as a lapidaries' stone.
  • noun A soft yellow malmbrick, used for face-work, from the facility with which it can be cut or rubbed down.
  • noun In a weavers' loom, the box which contains the quills.
  • noun A vessel of the government revenue marine which is known as the revenue-cutter service.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun One who cuts.
  • noun That which cuts; a machine or part of a machine, or a tool or instrument used for cutting, as that part of a mower which severs the stalk, or as a paper cutter.
  • noun A fore tooth; an incisor.
  • noun A boat used by ships of war.
  • noun A fast sailing vessel with one mast, rigged in most essentials like a sloop. A cutter is narrower and deeper than a sloop of the same length, and depends for stability on a deep keel, often heavily weighted with lead.
  • noun In the United States, a sailing vessel with one mast and a bowsprit, setting one or two headsails. In Great Britain and Europe, a cutter sets two headsails, with or without a bowsprit.
  • noun A small armed vessel, usually a steamer, in the revenue marine service; -- also called revenue cutter.
  • noun A small, light one-horse sleigh.
  • noun An officer in the exchequer who notes by cutting on the tallies the sums paid.
  • noun obsolete A ruffian; a bravo; a destroyer.
  • noun A kind of soft yellow brick, used for facework; -- so called from the facility with which it can be cut.
  • noun (Mach.) The bar to which the triangular knives of a harvester are attached.
  • noun (Mach.) a rotating head, which itself forms a cutter, or a rotating stock to which cutters may be attached, as in a planing or matching machine.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A person or device that cuts.
  • noun nautical A single-masted, fore-and-aft rigged, sailing vessel with at least two headsails, and a mast set further aft than that of a sloop.
  • noun A foretooth; an incisor.
  • noun A heavy-duty motor boat for official use.
  • noun nautical A ship's boat, used for transport ship-to-ship or ship-to-shore.

Etymologies

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  • Cricket jargon - a ball which moves laterally after it lands on the pitch.

    December 3, 2007

  • To fondle, or make much of, as a hen or goose of her young. This is an old term listed by Grose in his Provincial Glossary of 1787.

    See defs. 20, 21 in the Century Dictionary.

    May 5, 2011