Forms: 1 cudele, 5 codull(e, cotul(l, 6–7 cuttell, (7 cudle, cuttel, cuddell, 9 dial. coodle, cuddle), 6– cuttle; also 6 scuttel, 7–8 SCUTTLE. [OE. cudele, also in OLow-Frankish, c. 1100 (Grimm); of unknown derivation. The original form survives in the dialectal cuddle, coodle; cuttle appeared about 1500. Cf. Ger. kuttel-fisch, perh. from English.]
A cephalopod of the genus Sepia or family Sepiidæ, esp. the common cuttlefish, Sepia officinalis, also called ink-fish from its power of ejecting a black fluid from a bag or sac, so as to darken the water and conceal itself from pursuit. Thence the name is extended to other decapod, and sometimes even to octopod, cephalopods.
c. 1000. Suppl. Ælfric’s Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 181. Sepia, cudele, uel wasescite.
c. 1490. Promp. Parv., 96 (K. H.). Cotul, fisshe [Pynson cotull or codull, fisshe], cepia.
1538. Elyot, Biblioth., Sepia, a fyshe callyd a Cuttell.
1597–8. Bp. Hall, Sat., IV. i. 41. The craftie Cuttle lieth sure In the blacke cloude of his thicke vomiture.
1623. Whitbourne, Newfoundland, 94. The Squid, which is something like the Cuddell.
1658. Willsford, Nature’s Secrets (1665), 135. Cuttles with their many legs swimming on the top of the water, and striving to be above the waves, do presage a storm.
1883. Jefferies, Story of my Heart, iii. 58. The ghastly cuttles.
1880. W. Cornwall Gloss., Cuddle, coodle, a cuttle-fish.
β. Now usually called Cuttle-fish.
1591. Percivall, Sp. Dict., Xibia, a cuttle fish, sepia.
1615. Crooke, Body of Man, 24. So the Cuttle-fish … powreth forth a blacke humor, and in that clowd she escapeth.
1766. Smollett, Trav., I. 292. The sæpie, or cuttle-fish, of which the people in this country make delicate ragout.
1873. Dawson, Earth & Man, iv. 69. The highest of the Mollusca, represented in our seas by the cuttle-fishes.
† b. Used allusively in reference to the animal’s habit of darkening the water when alarmed. Obs.
1555. Ridley, Declar. Lord’s Supper, Wks. (Parker Soc.), 36. They will not cease to go about to play the cuttles, and to cast their colours over them.
a. 1556. Cranmer, Wks., I. 75. Note well here, reader, how the cuttle cometh in with his dark colours.
2. attrib. and Comb. (of cuttle and cuttle-fish), as cuttle shell, CUTTLE-BONE; cuttle-fish tribe.
1802. Bingley, Anim. Biog. (1813), III. 429. Of the sepia, or cuttle-fish tribe.
1812. J. Smyth, Pract. Customs (1821), 80. Cuttle shells or bones, produced by the Sepia or Cuttle-Fish.
1889. W. Archer, in Pall Mall Gaz., 4 Dec., 2/2. I have no wish to enter into a dispute … with such a cuttle-fish controversialist.
1891. R. Kipling, City Dreadf. Nt., 18. Is he trying to run a motion through under cover of a cloud of words, essaying the well-known ‘cuttle-fish trick’ of the West?
