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Cutlass   /kˈətləs/   Listen
Cutlass

noun
(pl. cutlasses)
1.
A short heavy curved sword with one edge; formerly used by sailors.  Synonym: cutlas.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Cutlass" Quotes from Famous Books



... Anne, sister Anne, do you see anybody coming?" "I see the burning sun," she answered, "and the waving grass!" Meanwhile old Blue-beard down below was whetting up his cutlass, And shouting: "Come down quick, or I'll come after you, my lass!" "One little minute more to pray, one minute more!" she pleaded— To hope how slow the minutes are, to dread how ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates

... lead. This was more than he wanted. "A hundred and sixty seamen and eighty marines," said Lord Cochrane, whose own narrative of the sequel will best describe it, "were placed, after dark, in fourteen boats alongside the flag-ship, each man, armed with cutlass and pistol, being, for distinction's sake, dressed in white, with a blue band on the left arm. The Spaniards, I expected, would be off their guard, and consider themselves safe from attack for that ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald

... not be confounded either with buccaneering or yard-arm piracy. It was only permitted under regular letters of marque, was ranked as an honorable occupation, and those bold spirits, the wild "beggars of the sea"—who preferred the cutlass and a roving commission in high latitudes to ploughing up the cowslips in the Guernsey valleys, or knitting striped shirts at home—were recognized as good fighting ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey

... turned and rammed her amidships. The Germans fought well, swarming aboard the Broke and fighting hand to hand, as in the days of boarding. But Midshipman Giles stood up to the first of them, who was soon killed by a bluejacket's cutlass; and then, after a tremendous tussle with swords and pistols and anything else that was handy, every German was either driven overboard or killed on the spot, except two ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood

... aqueducts of Rome. A gang of black women were standing in the secadero or drying-place, among the lumps of clayed sugar, beating them small with mallets; before them, walked to and fro the major-domo, with a cutlass by his side and a whip in his hand, I asked him how a planter could increase his stock of slaves. "There is no difficulty," he replied, "slaves are still brought to the island from Africa. The other ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant

... jacket again, and immediately proceeded thither, and on my way I noticed a group of seamen, standing on the starboard gangway, dressed in pea jackets, under which, by the light of a lantern, carried by one of them, I could see they were all armed with pistol and cutlass. They appeared in great glee, and as they made way for me, I could hear one fellow whisper, "There goes the little beagle." When I entered the gunroom, the first lieutenant, master, and purser, were sitting smoking and enjoying themselves over a ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... and, where this education has been omitted, one may generally detect the ugly carving-knife-and-fork style, so unpleasant to watch. Whereas with a good fencer—"foiler" perhaps I should say—everything is done with neatness, whether he has in his hand a single-stick, a cutlass, or the ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn

... each one jealous of another, all animated by an unbridled lust of plunder, and ever on the move, their lives are spent in perpetual warfare. The mounted Araucanian is armed with a long lance, a long cutlass, sabre-shaped, called a "Machete,"[5] and the lasso, in the use of which they are extremely expert, while the horse ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne

... Did your Majestie hope to effect so little by Reason that your Majestie must needs fall back on Reuenue? Hauing challenged this habit by the Kings pen, how unmannerly to resort to the coastguards cutlass & fight the custome at the Custome House. Was it, perhaps, that your Majestie was wishful to promote English Agriculture or was getting ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill

... and cutlasses, come out of Boylstons alley, which is a very short passage leading from Murrays barracks into the street—he desired them to retire to the barracks—one of them with a club in one hand and a cutlass in the other, with the latter, made a stroke at him: Finding no prospect of stopping them, he ran to the main-guard and called for the officers of the guard—he was informd, there was no officer there—he told the Soldiers, with drawn cutlasses, who he supposd ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams

... abandoned her. Only the evenly balanced hull was left, its bottom timbers broken and its bent keelson buried in the sand. This hulk little Tod Fogarty, aged ten, had taken possession of; particularly the after-part of the hold, over which he had placed a trusty henchman armed with a cutlass made from the hoop of a fish barrel. The henchman—aged seven—wore knee-trousers and a cap and answered to the name of Archie. The refuge itself bore the title of "The ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith

... the scales were roughly hammered gold and silver, richly chased, and studded thickly with gems—without any conjecture she knew them to be precious vessels that should have graced an altar, split, perhaps with a bloody cutlass, and beaten out into irregular plates to gratify some grim humor of the terrible old corsair in the long ago. Neither hinges, handle, lock, nor latch appeared on the surface; apparently the door was solidly embedded in the mighty rock itself. The giant laid a hand on the side of the door-frame, ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle

... a splendid double-barreled gun which I knew he was very desirous of having. He hesitated a moment, he was so very desirous to complete the poor devil's punishment. But when I added to the gun an English cutlass with which I had shivered his highness's yataghan to pieces, the bey yielded, and agreed to forgive the hand and head, but on condition that the poor fellow never again set foot in Tunis. This was a useless clause in the bargain, for whenever the coward sees the first glimpse of the ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... after some hours in the bush, change, rub down, and take a chair in the verandah, is to taste a quiet conscience. And the strange thing that I mark is this: If I go out and make sixpence, bossing my labourers and plying the cutlass or the spade, idiot conscience applauds me; if I sit in the house and make twenty pounds, idiot conscience wails over my neglect and the ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp

... was open; one of their heads cracked like a broken bottle under the blow the ready ruffian struck him with his bludgeon, and he dropped like a shot; but another was coming flying across the lawn with a drawn cutlass, and brutus, finding himself overmatched, gave one loud whistle and flew across the hall, making for the kitchen. Flew he never so fast mephisto was there an instant before him. As for the gentleman at the door he was encumbered with his hurt companion, ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... lifetime. From boyhood I never met a Dutchman whom it was not my duty to knock down. To-day, if I sailed in an English ship-of-war, what should I find? Dutchmen all around me. Your Majesty, I cannot speak the Dutch language except with a cutlass. I distrust my habits. They would infallibly lead to confusion. In the heat of action, ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... his cutlass in one hand, and in the other a piece of lighted paper, which he had twisted into the form of a torch, Harry Girdwood ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng

... authentic examples of early tapestries it is well to speak of the reason for their being invariably associated with the church. The impression left by history is that folk of those days must have been universally religious when not cutting each other in bits with bloody cutlass. The reason is, of course, that when poor crushed humanity began to revive from the devastating onslaughts of fierce Northern barbarians, it was with a timid huddling in monasteries, for there was found immunity from attack. The lord of the castle was forced to go to war or to ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee

... his cutlass, raised Ned; who, upon being released from the embrace of the boa, had fallen senseless. Alarmed as Tom was at his comrade's insensibility, he yet felt that it was the shock, and the revulsion of feeling which caused it, and not any ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty

... sharp an eye on the stores as I ought to have done, this would not have happened. Only let me catch them trying to board, and I will give them such a reception that I warrant me they will sheer off with a bullet or two in them. I have got that pair of boarding pistols, and a cutlass, hung ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty

... way up the woods, but saw nothing else. Coming down again, there was a round spot covered with fresh earth, about four feet diameter, where something had been buried. Having no spade, we began to dig with a cutlass; and in the mean time I launched the canoe with intent to destroy her; but seeing a great smoke ascending over the nearest hill, I got all the people into the boat, and made what haste I could to be with them ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook

... of the companionway, Lanyard contrived a hasty glance down the port alleyway. The door to Stateroom 30 was on the hook; a light burned within. Outside a guard was stationed, a sailor with a cutlass: the first application of the ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph

... the new comers, and caused them some temporary inconvenience, after a week's profusion and unbridled license; by a liberal exhibition of his force and the meanest display of his bounty; by giving the king a linen shirt and a cutlass in return for feather cloaks and helmets, which, irrespective of their value as insignia of the highest nobility in the land, were worth, singly at least from five to ten thousand dollars, at present price of the feathers, not counting ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... came up at a sign and hastened to bind the Frenchmen's feet, but with unlooked-for boldness he snatched the lieutenant's cutlass and laid about him like a cavalry officer who knows ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac

... lofty poop of the ship clambered a short, squat man in marvellous wide breeches and a great cutlass on hip, who clapping speaking-trumpet ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol

... one knee upon the rail, a tow-bearded man, whom he had never before observed aboard his vessel, grabbed suddenly at his pistol. Craddock clutched at the fellow's wrist, but at the same instant his mate snatched the cutlass from his side. ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle

... Grantown to find a steamer. Each port was the dwelling-place of romance. Leith was a squalid pack of black streets that debouched on a high brick wall delightfully surmounted by mast-tops, and from every door there flashed the cutlass gleam of the splendid sinister. Number 2, Sievering Street, was an opium den. It was a corner house with Nottingham lace curtains and a massive brown door that was always closed. You never would have known it, but that was what it was. And once ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... stone mantelpiece, painted to resemble gray granite, stands an old iron candlestick, furnished with a meagre candle, capped by an extinguisher. Near it one sees a pair of double-barrelled pistols, and a sharp cutlass, with a hilt of carved bronze, belonging to the seventeenth century. Moreover, a heavy rifle rests against one of the chimney jambs. Four stools, an old oak press, and a square table with twisted legs, formed the sole furniture of this apartment. Against the wall were systematically ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... Desmond recognized the voice. It was the voice of Silas Toley. There was nothing of melancholy in it, nor in the expression of the New Englander as he sprang, cutlass in hand, through the gap. Slow to take fire, when Toley's anger was kindled it blazed with a devouring flame. The crowd of assailants dissolved as if by magic. Before the last of the crew of the Hormuzzeer, lascars and Europeans, had passed into the inclosure, the men ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... survivors of a race doomed—doomed from the day that Roggewein in his clumsy, high-pooped frigate first saw their land, and marvelled at the imperishable relics of a dead greatness. With smiling faces they welcomed him—a stranger from an unknown, outside world, with cutlass at waist and pistol in hand—as a god; he left them a legacy of civilisation—a hideous and cruel disease that swept through the amiable and unsuspicious race as an epidemic, and slew its thousands, and scaled with the hand of Death and Silence the eager life ...
— By Reef and Palm • Louis Becke

... his power, with the aid of the following implements, placed in his hands for that purpose, if necessary, viz:—Law, when the party is worthy of that attention and proper testimony can be had, a good cudgel, tomahawk, cutlass, gun and blunderbuss, with powder, shot and bullets, steel ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker

... save for a short kilt of cat's-tails and hide, they were quite unclad. They carried large shields of the Zulu pattern, and a sheaf of gleaming spears—some light, others heavy and strong with the blade like a cutlass. ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford

... obliged to let it go; upon which he asked for a boat to be lowered for him to get on board, which was also done, and he should have made his escape, had not one stood up in the bow with a naked cutlass and the others flourished their weapons over their heads; which frightened the Indians so much that they pulled away on shore, followed by the boat for a little distance, and there concealed him. Ireland declares, that he did not say, that ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes

... whatever kind, are tolerated, well received everywhere. Ten men travel on account of the house of Planchet & Co., of France—nothing can be said against that. These ten men, clothed like manufacturers, have a good cutlass or a good musket at their saddle-bow, and a good pistol in the holster. They never allow themselves to be uneasy, because they have no evil designs. They are, perhaps, in truth, a little disposed to be smugglers, but what harm is in that? Smuggling is not, like polygamy, ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... into the court room with a tall young man, whose weather-beaten face indicated a seafaring life, at the head of them. His cruel gray eyes, bold manner, as well as the pistols and cutlass at his belt, gave him the ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick

... European blood, though his face, from long exposure to the weather, was deeply bronzed. His dress was that of a common seaman, except that he had on a Greek skull-cap, and wore a broad shawl of the richest silk round his waist. In this shawl were placed two pairs of pistols and a heavy cutlass. He wore a beard and moustache, which, like the locks on his head, were short, curly, and ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... with any of the ordinary engines of naval warfare, his plan was of a straightforward, old-fashioned kind. He would run his ship alongside the other; he would make fast, and then his men, each one with a cutlass and a pistol, should swarm over the side of the larger vessel and cut down and fire until the beastly hounds were all dead or on their knees. If he caught sight of Captain Horn,—and he was sure he would recognize him, for such a fellow would be sure to push himself forward no matter what was ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton

... can well believe the stories of those terrible Amazonian guards of the King of Dahomey, whose boast is, that they are no longer women, but men. There is no doubt that, in case of a rebellion, the black women of the West Indies would be as formidable, cutlass in hand, as the men. The other cause is the exceeding ease with which, not merely food, but gay clothes and ornaments, can be procured by light labour. The negro woman has no need to marry and make herself the slave of a man, in order to get a home and subsistence. Independent she is, ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... went off; but the interpreter explained to him that it was a mark of honour, always granted to native princes of importance. Seeing that no harm was done by the fire, the Malay approached Harry, whose escort had been rendered more imposing by a line of blue jackets, with musket and cutlass, drawn up behind them. ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty

... all round—the natives were said to be an ugly set—they were followed over the side by the invalid captain, who, on this occasion, it seems, was determined to signalize himself. Accordingly, in addition to his cutlass, he wore an old boarding belt, in which was thrust a brace of pistols. They ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville

... ghastly perils that surrounded them. Bligh himself, in his journal, alludes to this feeling. Once, when he and his companions landed on a desert island, one of them said, with a mutinous look, that he considered himself "as good a man as he;" Bligh, seizing a cutlass, called upon him to take another and defend himself, whereupon the man said that Bligh was going to kill him, and made all manner of concessions; now why did this fellow consider himself as good a man as Bligh? Was he as good a seaman? no, nor a ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... been thrown up into the wind as soon as the polacre's sails had been lowered and, in three minutes, a boat came alongside. Then Joe Lockett, followed by half a dozen sailors armed with pistol and cutlass, scrambled on board. ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty

... pentaerythritol tetranitrate[ISA:chemsub][Chemsub], PETN. high explosive; trinitrotoluene, TNT; dynamite, melinite[obs3], cordite, lyddite, plastic explosive, plastique; pyroxyline[obs3]. [knives and swords: list] sword, saber, broadsword, cutlass, falchion[obs3], scimitar, cimeter[obs3], brand, whinyard, bilbo, glaive[obs3], glave[obs3], rapier, skean, Toledo, Ferrara, tuck, claymore, adaga[obs3], baselard[obs3], Lochaber ax, skean dhu[obs3], creese[obs3], kris, dagger, dirk, banger[obs3], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... ourselves. Yet a few must be mentioned because the fame of them still endures, and because they are examples of naval warfare in the days when the ships fought lashed together, and when the boarders, cutlass and pistol in hand, climbed over the bulwarks and met the enemy on his own deck, man to man. During 1812 the frigate Constitution, whose many victories won her the name of "Old Ironsides," sank the Guerriere; the United States captured and brought to port ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster

... others are barb'd, some with wood, others with Stings of rays, and some with Sharks' Teeth, etc.; these last are stuck fast on with Gum. They throw the Darts with only one hand, in the doing of which they make use of a piece of wood about 3 feet long, made thin like the blade of a Cutlass, with a little hook at one End to take hold of the End of the dart, and at the other end is fix'd a thin piece of bone about 3 or 4 Inches long; the use of this is, I believe, to keep the dart steady, and ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook

... gave the occupants of the battery more time than they had anticipated, and this was utilised in reloading, which was almost completed, when there was a word of command, a shout; and armed with cutlass, pistol, and boarding-pike, the Frenchmen dashed up gallantly to the wall, some stopping back to fire at the defenders, who were, however, too ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn

... immediately conciliated his friendship. This was a fortunate step, as he afterwards often showed his authority by checking the most insolent of his people when they pressed forward and endeavoured to steal whatever they could seize. One seaman holding his cutlass rather carelessly had it snatched from him, and the thief had so well watched his opportunity, that he was almost out of sight before he was distinguished. Notwithstanding the offers of the natives in the canoes, I could not procure above thirty cocoanuts, ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip

... fully occupied, bestowing, indeed, more than one wound on him. Devereux was, meantime, engaged with another fellow, evidently an officer by his gay dress and ornaments. He also was a good swordsman; and while the English seamen were engaged on either side, he managed to strike down Devereux's cutlass, and would the next moment have cut him from the head to the neck, when Paul, seeing that the moment for action had arrived, springing forward, fired his pistol with so good an aim, that the pirate, ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston

... run them, so a nimble young man that was with me, seeing some of them near, ran towards them; and they for some time ran away before him, but he soon overtaking them, they faced about and fought him. He had a cutlass and they had wooden lances, with which, being many of them, they were too hard for him. When he first ran towards them I chased two more that were by the shore; but fearing how it might be with my young man, I turned back quickly and went to the top of ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton

... cockswain of the boat was, however, a drunkard, and intrusted much to Sears. Oftentimes he roused the men by his violence, but Sears contrived to subdue his passion. At length, one night, returning to the hut, drunk, the man struck at one of the crew with his cutlass, and the rest resisted and disarmed him. But the morning came; the case was heard; their story was disbelieved; and upon the charge and evidence of the aggressor, they were sent to an ironed gang, to work on the public roads. When Sears again became ...
— Famous Islands and Memorable Voyages • Anonymous

... used, as it is procured with facility, being found lying in great quantities on the surface of the earth. They load their muskets with a large charge of both powder and shot. In their buckskin belts they carry from six to twenty knives of various lengths, together with a cutlass or bill-hook, the former for cutting off heads, and the latter for clearing their way through the underwood. On arriving near the enemy, they cut a path transversely in front of those before mentioned, in which path ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman

... there, towards what they call the Chapel Rock, at the other end of that long mound they call the breakwater. You will soon see a boat appear full of the coast-guard. I saw them going on board just as I left the house to come up to you. Their officer came down with his sword, and each of the men had a cutlass. I ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald

... on the following morning, I put two rifles in the boat, with an ample supply of cartridges, while we each carried a brace of revolvers in a belt strapped round our waists; in addition to which I took along with me a ship's cutlass to serve instead of an axe with which to cut any suitable boughs we might chance ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood

... said, used him and the rest of the persons they found on board with great inhumanity and baseness, a thing very common amongst those wretches. Upton also insisted that as to himself, one of the pirate's crew ran up to him as soon as they came on board and with a cutlass in his hand, said with an oath, You old son of a bitch, I know you and you shall go along with us or I'll cut out your liver, and thereupon fell to beating him fore and aft ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... his cutlass so fine; Says he to the farmer, "you or I for the shine!" And to it they went both, like two Grecians of old, Cutting, slashing, up and down, and all for the gold! 'Twas cut for cut while it did last, Thrashing, licking, hard and fast, Hard milling for ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer

... nearly so. At midnight, after having been exhausted during the preceding week by his vigilance, Walsingham had just thrown himself into his cot, when he was roused by Birch at his cabin-door, crying, 'A mutiny! a mutiny on deck!'—Walsingham seized his drawn cutlass, and ran up the ladder, determined to cut down the ringleader; but just as he reached the top, the sailors shut down the hatchway, which struck his head with such violence, that he fell, stunned, and, to all appearance, dead. Birch contrived, in the midst of the bustle, before ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth

... suit of common cut and texture, that presented no distinct features, and would be most difficult either to describe or identify. He had a great pair of horse pistols stuck in his belt, and also wore a dangerous-looking weapon—something between a sword and a cutlass. His golden hair was tucked away beneath the collar of his coat, and his head was covered by a frowzy dark wig, that looked like untrimmed natural hair. He quickly blackened his face with soot from the chimney, and put on ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green

... carried it on merrily for six or seven years, till the British cruisers got too keen for him, and the good old game was played out. You see that scar upon the hilalgo's forehead, Lesbia—a token of knightly prowess, you think, perhaps. No, my girl, that is the mark of an English cutlass in a scuffle on board a slaver. A merry trade, Lesbia—the living cargo stowed close under hatches have rather a bad time of it now and then—short rations of food and water, yellow Jack. They die like rotten sheep sometimes—bad then for the dealer. ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... round his neck by a lanyard, and with which little Virginia was then playing. He had grown more burly in appearance, spreading, as sailors usually do, when they arrive to about the age of forty; and, moreover, he had a dreadful scar from a cutlass wound, received in boarding, which had divided the whole left side of his face, from the eyebrow to the chin. This gave him a very fierce expression; still he was a fine-looking man, and his pigtail ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat

... got up from where she had been pretending to be asleep, and told Brown to follow her instantly. Brown obeyed with alacrity, feeling that he was already out of reach of danger when the villains had gone out; but before leaving he took up a cutlass belonging to one of the five, and brought it with him in the belief that he might yet have to fight with them for his life. The snow lay on the ground as he and the gipsy came out, and as he followed her he noticed that she chose the track ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten

... Wherefore M. de Guise, and MM. the princes, went so far as to beg the King that if it were possible I should be sent to them with a supply of drugs, and they believed their drugs were poisoned, seeing that few of their wounded escaped. My belief is that there was no poison; but the severe cutlass and arquebus wounds, and the extreme cold, were the cause why so many died. The King wrote to M. the Marshal de Saint Andre, who was his Lieutenant at Verdun, to find means to get me into Metz, whatever way was possible. MM. the Marshal de Saint ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various

... contemptuous indifference. The office of patriarch becoming vacant, he left it unfilled for twenty-one years, and finally, on being implored by a delegation from the clergy to appoint a patriarch, he started up in a furious passion, struck his breast with his fist and the table with his cutlass, and roared out, "Here, here is your patriarch!" He then stamped angrily from the room, leaving the prelates in a ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... whenever my brother would relate the story, which he did not at all enjoy doing, for a cutlass had been swung over his head, and his life threatened by the pirate's boatswain, demanding more money, after all had been taken. A Genoese messmate, Iachimo, shortened to plain "Jack" by the "Mexican's" crew, ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom

... they resembled glass painted as eyes, the colours faded. He had a broad belt round his waist, and the hilt of a kind of cutlass peeped from under his cloak. Otherwise he was unarmed. I thought he breathed, and seemed to see a movement in his breast, and I took him by the shoulder; but in the hurry of my feelings I exerted more strength than I was sensible of. I pushed ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell

... a cool way, and with the flat of his cutlass, hit me crosswise, as if I was the bough of a tree that he played with: first on the face, and then across the chest and the wounded arm. I looked him steady in the face without tumbling while he looked at me, I am happy to say; but, when they went away, I fell, ...
— The Perils of Certain English Prisoners • Charles Dickens

... the ex-man-o'-war's man. "I'm good for a bout with eyther, and don't care a toss which. Pistols at six paces, or my cutlass against that straight blade o' yours. ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid

... groups of soldiers came out, with their flintlocks in their hands: a boy was struck on the head; several times the guns were leveled, and the threat was made to fire. One youth was knocked down with a cutlass. Knots of angry young men began to range hither and thither with staves:—"Where are they? —Cowards!—Fire if you dare!—Lobster-scoundrels!" The soldiers, on the other hand, were giving way to fury, striking persons in the doors of their ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... presently, turning suddenly, with an odd feeling of being watched, I beheld something crouching amid a clump of bushes. I stood regarding this. I made a step towards it, and it rose up and became a man armed with a cutlass. I approached him slowly. He stood silent ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells

... and valley farms, rather than a built-up industrial district. Local police and wild-game protection officers are concerned; all the farmers excited, and going armed. The theory is that it's either a wildcat of some sort, or a maniac armed with a cutlass. Either theory would conform, more or less, to the nature of its depredations. Nobody has actually ...
— Police Operation • H. Beam Piper

... imaginative way; then, armed to the teeth with gun, pistols, and sword, he would begin the serious climbing of the morning, encountering by the way innumerable slavers, Indians, pirates, leopards, and bears. He was seldom seen at that hour of the day without a cutlass in his teeth (like Dick Needham) amid the rapid explosion of copper caps. And many were the gardeners he brought down with yellow peas shot out of his little gun. He lived a life ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... there was a rush of feet outside; and three men, one holding a cutlass and the other two armed with pokers, ran into the room. It was fortunate they did so, for the man whom Bob had first felled was just rising to his feet; but he was at once struck down again, by a heavy blow over the head with the cutlass. By this ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty

... clinked away down the rutty road which their wheels and horses cut into new and deeper furrows; a veil of violet dust hung in their wake, through which harness, cannon, and drawn cutlass glittered and glimmered like sunlit ripples ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... Bligh himself, in his journal, alludes to this feeling. Once, when he and his companions landed on a desert island, one of them said, with a mutinous look, that he considered himself 'as good a man as he'; Bligh, seizing a cutlass, called upon him to take another and defend himself, whereupon the man said that Bligh was going to kill him, and made all manner of concessions. Now, why did this fellow consider himself as good a man as Bligh? Was ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... have a chance to smell powder," said Briggs as he entered the cockpit and buckled around his waist an enormous cutlass. "We have just sighted a ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... not loath to use it. Usually, however, his voice upraised in threatening sufficed. For Rob Dickson could stir the Logan Stone with his little finger. He had escaped from the press-gang on his way from Stanykirk Sacrament, and had carried away the slash of a cutlass with him, the scar of which was plain to be seen of all, beginning as it did a little below his ear and running to the point of the shoulder-blade. This made the prestige of Rob Dickson notable, especially among the Irish. Had he not ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett

... Massachusetts law, converted into a jail to hold men charged with no crime. Ruffians mounted guard at the entrance, armed with swords, fire-arms, and bludgeons. The door was locked and doubly barred besides. Inside the watch was kept by a horrid looking fellow, without a coat, a naked cutlass in his hand, and some twenty others, their mouths nauseous with tobacco and reeking also with half-digested rum paid for by the city. In such company, I gave what consolation Religion could offer to the first man Boston ever kidnapped,—consolations which took hold only of eternity, where ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker

... among the three shows in the neighborhood, was about Seventeenth Century buccaneers; exciting action and a sound-track loud with shots and cutlass-clashing. He let himself be drawn into it completely, and, until it was finished, he was able to forget both the college and the history of the future. But, as he walked home, he was struck by the parallel between the buccaneers ...
— The Edge of the Knife • Henry Beam Piper

... until certain news being conveyed to Captain Rackam by his bride, he sailed to Cuba and put Anne ashore at a small cove, where he had a house and also friends, who he knew would take good care of her. But before long Anne was back in the pirate ship, as active as any of her male shipmates with cutlass and marlinspike, always one of the ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse

... Americans, with cutlass and boarding pike in hand, dashed through the gun ports and over the bulwarks. In a twinkling the quarter deck was cleared and all the Tripolitans on the forecastle were rushed overboard. The noise brought up a number of Turks from below, but the moment they saw ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis

... ears.] Oh, be not deceived by his size! Evil makes his models first on a tiny scale. The soul of a cutlass dwells in the pocket-knife; blackbird and crow are of the selfsame crape, and the striped wasp ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand

... and steered for Algiers. But, in the night of that day, the two mates went, while the Spanish crew weren't looking, and they set free the Englishmen and gave them a paper to sign. That paper made them Captain Sol's sailors. And then they gave each man pistols and a cutlass, and the first mate took half of the Englishmen and went to the forecastle, where four men of the Spanish crew were sleeping; and the second mate took the other five Englishmen, and he went on deck, where the other five men of the Spanish crew were on watch, but he hid his Englishmen. ...
— The Sandman: His Sea Stories • William J. Hopkins

... corner of the street Coulture Ste. Catherine, and finding he had but little company with him, he fell upon him at the head of a score of ruffians. Clisson defended himself for some time without any other weapon than a small cutlass; but after receiving three wounds, fell from his horse, and pitched against a door, which flew open. The report of this assassination reached the king's ears just as he was stepping into bed. He ...
— A Visit to the Monastery of La Trappe in 1817 • W.D. Fellowes

... themselves Chil-luckit-tequaw, live in houses Similar to those described, Speake Somewhat different language with maney words the Same & understand those in their neighbourhood Cap Lewis took a vocabilary of this Language I entered one of the houses in which I Saw a British musket, a cutlass and Several brass Tea kittles of which they appeared verry fond Saw them boiling fish in baskets with Stones, I also Saw figures of animals & men Cut & painted on boards in one Side of the house which they ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

... believe, from some contemporary documents which Cantu has brought to light, that Bibboni exaggerated his own part in the affair. Luca Martelli, writing to Varchi, says that it was Bebo who clove Lorenzino's skull with a cutlass. He adds this curious detail, that the weapons of both men were poisoned, and that the wound inflicted by Bibboni on Soderini's hand was a slight one. Yet, the poignard being poisoned, Soderini died of it. In ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... native agents for a full grown male slave, is about one musket, twelve pieces of romauls, one cutlass, a demijohn of rum, a bar of iron, a keg of powder, and ten bars of leaf-tobacco, the whole amounting to the value of thirty to thirty-five dollars. A female is sold for about a quarter less; and boys of twelve or thirteen command only a musket and ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge

... my swaggering buccaneer, if you want to do it in the grand manner," answered Frederick, "I'll arrange for the saucy little cutter, the sequestered cove an' the hard-riding exciseman with a cocked hat and cutlass. But the simpler if less picturesque way is to dump your bag on the counter at the Customs House and be taken with a fit of sneezing when the Grand Inquisitor asks you if you have ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various

... he roared, "if I don't slit you like a herring! The devil burn me to a cinder if I don't give your guts to the sharks!" And he made at me in such a fury that I would certainly have been cut to pieces had I not grasped a cutlass and parried his blow, Cockle looking on with his jaw dropped like a peak without haulyards. With a stroke of my weapon I disarmed Captain Griggs, his sword flying through the cabin window. For I made up my mind I would better die fighting than expire at a hideous torture, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... mountaineer we meet do that. You hailed him, and the man answered, and he is coming toward us," continued Dale, straining his eyes again to watch the slowly approaching figure. "Bah! How absurd! I'm as bad as the sailor who put his cutlass into his left hand, so that he could have his right free to knock an ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn

... will do," cried the Captain, hurrying on deck with a brace of pistols and a cutlass in his belt, "six men are enough; let twelve of the remainder follow on foot. Jump on the sledge, Grim and Buzzby; O'Riley, you go too. Have a Care, Fred; not too near the front. ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... banished from thought and speech; though so far conceded in formal act that some slight protection was employed. The courier and the young banker carried loaded revolvers, and Muscari (with much boyish gratification) buckled on a kind of cutlass ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... Ensenada, thus confided to the vigilance of Pepe the sleeper, was mysteriously shut in among the cliffs, as if nature had designed it expressly for smugglers—especially those Spanish contrabandistas who carry on the trade with a cutlass in one hand and ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid

... and snatching a cutlass from the hand of a retreating soldier, threw myself in front of a column in a vain endeavor to stop them, but they ran over me like so many sheep. Terror had lent them wings of flight and deprived them of reason. By this time the government ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds

... any comfort in the son of our bosom? Would he not, think ye, be obliged with his ship to sail the salt seas, through foul weather and fair; and, when he met the French, to fight, hack, and hew them down, lith and limb, with grape-shot and cutlass; till some unfortunate day or other, after having lost a leg and an arm in the service, he is felled as dead as a door-nail, with a cut and thrust over the crown, by some furious rascal that saw he was off his guard, glowring with his blind e'e another way?—Ye speak havers, ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir

... is afraid of no one, Lieutenant. He has been at Abomey, against the Amazons, in a country where a black arm started out from every bush to seize your leg, while another cut it off for you with one blow of a cutlass." ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit

... after him, captain,' asked pathetic Smee, 'and tickle him with Johnny Corkscrew?' Smee had pleasant names for everything, and his cutlass was Johnny Corkscrew, because he wriggled it in the wound. One could mention many lovable traits in Smee. For instance, after killing, it was his spectacles he wiped instead ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie

... was choked with struggling figures. Some twenty convicts, and half as many soldiers, struck and stabbed at each other in the crowd. There was barely elbow-room, and attacked and attackers fought almost without knowing whom they struck. Gabbett tore a cutlass from a soldier, shook his huge head, and calling on the Moocher to follow, bounded up the ladder, desperately determined to brave the fire of the watch. The Moocher, close at the giant's heels, flung himself upon the nearest soldier, ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke

... face me, he naturally could see something that I did not see. 'Look behind!' he called out rapidly. I did so, and saw the murderous villain Manasseh with his arm uplifted, and in the act of cutting at my wife, nearly insensible as she was, with a cutlass. The blow was not for me, but for her, as the fugitive prisoner; and the law would have borne him out in the act. I saw, I comprehended the whole. I groped, as far as I could without letting my wife drop, for my pistols; but all that I could do would have been ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... premeditated crime. A banquet, according to the wont of those hospitable times, was given to the stranger. The king was at the board, the cup of poison at hand, when Theseus, wishing to prepare his father for the welcome news he had to divulge, drew the sword or cutlass which Aegeus had made the token of his birth, and prepared to carve with it the meat that was set before him. The sword caught the eye of the king—he dashed the poison to the ground, and after a few eager and rapid questions, recognised ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... often why you have so many men. Nothing for half of dem to do. Now me understand. Well, sar, if there be any fighting, you see me fight. You gib me cutlass; ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty

... model of the corps which Tom was instrumental in raising at home. At eight o'clock I went down to the shore and looked at the Volunteers drilling in the open. They certainly are a splendid body of men, and their drill is quite wonderful. I have never seen such good cutlass drill anywhere, and I have 'assisted' ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey

... dog dodged the weapon, and, with a cutlass suddenly pulled from behind him, made a fierce blow at the cat. Puss leaped nimbly away, with a scream of triumph and defiance. Then they set to with all their skill ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various

... upon him. His name was John Hilliard, and he was precisely what any of these good-humored, mischievous fellows outside would have been, hired on a brigantine two centuries ago; disposed to shirk his work in order to stand gaping at Black Ben fishing, or to rub up secretly his old cutlass for the behoof of Kidd, or the French when they should come, while the Indian Venus stood by looking on, with the baby in ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various

... our men box; but the sword's the weapon for an officer, and precious few of 'em are fit for more than to kick the scabbard. Slashing comes easier to them: a plaguey cut, if it does cut—say, one in six. Navy too. Their cutlass-drill is like a woman's fling of the arm to fetch a slap from behind her shoulder. Pinking beats chopping. These English 'll have their lesson. It 's like what you call good writing: the simple way does the business, and that's the most difficult to learn, because you must give your head to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... punished himself, if he neglects his duty, frequently seizes them in the fact. No excuse or intreaty will avail; he must punish them for an example, and he must punish them, not with a stick, nor with a whip, but with a cutlass. Thus it happens, that these unhappy slaves, if they are taken, are either sent away mangled in a barbarous manner, or ...
— An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African • Thomas Clarkson

... unexpected were his onsets. But there was no witchcraft about it. He sailed swiftly because he was a skilled sailor and because he missed no opportunity to have the bottom of his ship scraped and greased. And when on board, pistol and cutlass hung loose; for it was a time of war with a ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis

... hand. Down came the portcullis. The flying plunderers were entrapped. Close behind them came the excited burghers—their antique Belgic ferocity now fully aroused—firing away with carbine and matchlock, dealing about them with bludgeon and cutlass, and led merrily on by Haultepenne and Elmont armed in proof, at the head of their squadron of lancers. The unfortunate patriots had risen very early in the morning only to shear the wolf. Some were cut to pieces in the streets; others climbed the walls, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... shore had all been instructed, and at precisely ten o'clock they were seated in the whaleboat, with Mr. Graines in the stern sheets. They were all armed with two revolvers apiece, and there was a cutlass for each in the boat. The men had not only changed their dress, but they had disguised themselves, smooching their faces with coal dust, and tearing their garments till they were ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic

... this weapon also on the western coast in latitude 16 degrees 50 minutes is evident from the following observation. "These swords were afterwards found to be made of wood and rudely shaped something like a cutlass.") ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell

... then girding round his waist, Forth rush'd the swain with hospitable haste. Straight to the lodgments of his herd he run, Where the fat porkers slept beneath the sun; Of two, his cutlass launch'd the spouting blood; These quarter'd, singed, and fix'd on forks of wood, All hasty on the hissing coals he threw; And smoking, back the tasteful viands drew. Broachers and all then an the board display'd The ready meal, before Ulysses laid With flour imbrown'd; next mingled wine ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... and a Portugueze that was call'd Don Antonio, which were all the Europeans on Board, to take on with them; the first he design'd as a pilot, and the last as an interpreter. He also used the men very cruelly, causing them to be hoisted up by the arms, and drubb'd with a naked cutlass, to force them to discover whether they had money on board, and where it lay; but as they had neither gold nor silver on board, he got nothing by his cruelty; however, he took from them a bale of pepper, and a bale of coffee, and so ...
— Pirates • Anonymous

... successfully run the gauntlet of the batteries, when, between eight and nine o'clock in the evening, as Faries was firing his last rounds, a solid shot struck and instantly killed Commander Abner Read. Captain Jenkins was, at the same time, wounded by a flying fragment of a broken cutlass. Of the crew two were ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin

... I suppose the captain's brother-in-law is generally the first man to board the Spaniard with his cutlass between his teeth? ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne

... intention to escape, were condemned, by a sentence pronounced in 1815, to have their hamstrings cut!) Notwithstanding the wisdom and mildness of Spanish legislation, to how many excesses the slave is exposed in the solitude of a plantation or a farm, where a rude capatez, armed with a cutlass (machete) and a whip, exercises absolute authority with impunity! The law neither limits the punishment of the slave, nor the duration of labour; nor does it prescribe the quality and quantity ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt



Words linked to "Cutlass" :   steel, brand, sword, blade



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