1. The knee of the head of a ship, etc., which serves to divide the water before it reaches the bow; also, the forward edge of the stem or prow.
1644. J. Winthrop, Hist. New Engl. (1853), II. 239. It struck against the head of a bolt in the cut-water of the Dartmouth ship, and went no further.
1712. W. Rogers, Voy., 218. Her Rudder and Cut-water were eaten to pieces.
1789. O. Equiano, Life (1790), 102. She struck our ship with her cutwater.
1853. Kane, Grinnell Exp., l. (1856), 477. Stretching from end to end, and shielded at the stem and stern by cutwaters of bone.
1866. R. M. Ballantyne, Shifting Winds, xiii. (1881), 132. The steamer … sent the cutwater crashing through bulwark, plank, and beam.
2. The wedge-shaped end of the pier of a bridge which serves to divide the current, break up masses of ice, etc., flowing against the pier.
1776. G. Semple, Building in Water, 100. Brace your Cut-water Pile with temporary Braces. Ibid., 101. The Cut-water in the first projecting Course of the Pier.
3. An American sea-fowl, the Skimmer, Rhynchops nigra, allied to the terns.
1732. Mortimer, in Phil. Trans., XXXVII. 449. Larus major rostro inæquali. The Cut-Water. They probably take their English Name from their commonly flying close to the Water, from the Surface whereof they seem to scoop up some food with the under Part of their Bill, which is much longer than the upper.
1787. Latham, Hist. Birds, App. I. 269. The head preponderates for some distance, when the bill is seen to cut the water; hence the name of Cutwater, or Shearwater.
1844. De Kay, Zool. N. Y., II. Birds 297. The … Cutwater … reaches our coast from tropical America in May.
