Cutty Sark

British  

noun

1. a three-masted merchant clipper built in Dumbarton, Scotland in 1869, now kept as a museum ship at Greenwich, London; badly damaged by a fire in 2007; restored then reopened in 2012

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Etymology

Origin of Cutty Sark

named after the witch in Robert Burns' poem Tam O'Shanter, who wore only a cutty sark (short shirt)

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Cutty Sark

The Box, in Plymouth, was named the 2026 Art Fund Museum of the Year at a ceremony on the Cutty Sark at Royal Museums Greenwich, London, where it also received the £120,000 prize fund.

From BBC ● Jun. 25, 2026

He hung out with Johnny Carson, dated Natalie Wood and knocked back Cutty Sark at 2 a.m. with Bette Davis.

From New York Times ● Nov. 11, 2016

The Slate report has been questioned; the other two stories were as copper-bottomed as the hull of the Cutty Sark.

From The New Yorker ● Nov. 2, 2016

I look east to Greenwich, to the three masts of the Cutty Sark rising gracefully, 150 feet into the London sky.

From The Guardian ● Jul. 29, 2015

Not so his mare’s tail—that had not yet passed the magic line, and Cutty Sark, clinging thereto, dragged it off with an infernal wrench.—R.

From Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 by Brewer, Ebenezer Cobham