Chapter Cut neither Nails nor Hair at Sea to Cyclopean Masonry of C by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Cut Short is to shorten. "Cut short all intermission" (Macbeth, iv. 3). To cut it short means to bring to an end what you are doing or saying.
   His life was cut short. He died prematurely. The allusion is to Atropos, one of the three Parcæ cutting the thread of life span by her sister Clotho.

Cut up Rough (To). To be disagreeable or quarrelsome about anything.

Cuthbert St. Cuthbert's beads. Joints of the articulated stems of encrinites, used for rosaries. St. Cuthbert was a Scotch monk of the sixth century, and may be termed the St. Patrick of Great Britain. He is said to sit at night on a rock in Holy Island, and to use the opposite rock as his anvil while he forges the entrochites (entrokites). (See Bead.)

"On a rock of Lindisfarn
St. Cuthbert sits, and toils to frame
The sea-born beads that bear his name."
Scott: Marmion.

   St. Cuthbert's Stone. A granite rock in Cumberland.
   St. Cuthbert's Well. A spring of water close by St. Cuthbert's Stone.

Cuthbert Bede A nom de plume of the Rev Edward Bradley, author of Verdant Green. (1827-1889.)

Cutler's Poetry Mere jingles or rhymes. Knives had, at one time, a distich inscribed on the blade by means of aqua fortis.

"Whose posy was
For all the world like cutler's poetry
Upon a kuife."
Shakespeare: Merchant of Venice, v 1.

Cutpurse Now called "pickpocket." The two words are of historical value. When purses were worn suspended from a girdle, thieves cut the string by which the purse was attached; but when pockets were adopted, and purses were no longer hung on the girdle, the thief was no longer a cutpurse, but became a pickpocket.

"To have an open ear, a quick eye, and a nimble hand, is necessary for a cutpurse." - Shakespeare: Winter's Tale, iv 3.

Cutter's Law Not to see a fellow want while we have cash in our purse. Cutter's law means the law of purse-cutters, robbers, brigands, and highwaymen.

"I must put you in cash with some of your old uncle's broad-pieces. This is cutter's law; we must not see a pretty fellow want, if we have cash ourselves." - Sir W. Scott: Old Mortality, chap ix

Cuttle Captain Cuttle. An eccentric, kind-hearted sailor, simple as a child, credulous of every tale, and generous as the sun. He is immortalised by the motto selected by Notes and Queries, "When found make a note of." (Dickens: Dombey and Son.)

"Unfortunately, I neglected Captain Cuttle's advice, and am now unable to find it.' - W H Husk: Notes and Queries.

Cutty Scotch for short, as a cutty pipe, cutty sark. (A diminutive of curt.)

Cutty Pipe A short clay pipe. Scotch, cutty (short), as cutty spoons, cutty sark, a cutty (little girl), etc., a cutty gun (a pop-gun).

Cutty Stool A small stool on which offenders were placed in the Scotch church when they were about to receive a public rebuke.

Cwt is C wt. - i.e. C. centum, wt. weight, meaning hundred-weight. (See Dwt.)

Cyanean Rocks (The). The Symplegades at the entrance of the Euxine Sea. Said to close together when a vessel attempted to sail between them, and thus crush it to pieces. Cyanean means dark, and Symplegades means dashers together.

"Here are those hard rocks of trap, of a greenish-blue,coloured with copper, and hence called the Cyanean." - Olivier

Cycle A period or series of events or numbers which recur everlastingly in precisely the same order.
   Cycle of the moon, called "Meton's Cycle," from Meton, who discovered it, is a period of nineteen years, at the expiration of which time the phases of the moon repeat themselves on the same days as they did nineteen years previously. (See Callipic Period.)
   Cycle of the sun. A period of twenty-eight