cuttle
1 Americanverb (used with object)
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to fold (cloth) face to face after finishing.
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to allow (cloth) to lie without further treatment after fulling, milling, scouring, etc.
noun
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short for cuttlefish cuttlebone
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a small cuttlefish, Sepiola atlantica, often found on beaches
Etymology
Origin of cuttle1
before 1000; late Middle English codel, Old English cudele (replaced in the 16th century by cuttlefish and subsequently reshortened)
Origin of cuttle2
First recorded in 1535–45; origin uncertain
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
There were as yet no saurians or whales to dispute the dominion with these rapacious cephalopods, and so the cuttle family had things for the time all their own way.
From Falling in Love With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science by Grant Allen
A few feet away, out of range of the axe, and lifting itself bodily out of the water, was the dread form of the cuttle, apparently all head, with distended gills and monstrous eyes.
From The Wings of the Morning by Louis Tracy
It is vain to call first love a fiction; it may be as fictitious as the ink of the cuttle or the doubling of the hare; as fictitious, as efficient, and as indispensable.
From George Bernard Shaw by G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton
About as much as a canary in a cage," she announced, "and we are expected to sing joyously for our cuttle bone and hemp seed.
From The Portal of Dreams by Charles Neville Buck
Manny sinitors thought that th' next step wud be to take th' duty off cuttle fish bone, an' thus sthrike a blow at th' very heart iv our protictive system.
From Mr. Dooley Says by Finley Peter Dunne
The doubled piece now passes between a pair of positively driven drawing rollers, and is then "faked," "cuttled," or pleated as indicated.
From The Jute Industry: from Seed to Finished Cloth by T. Woodhouse
This operation is also known as "cuttling" or "faking."
From The Jute Industry: from Seed to Finished Cloth by T. Woodhouse
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
