Sc. [CUTTY a.]
1. A low stool.
1820. Scott, Monast., iv. Hitching her seat of honour … a little nearer to the cuttie-stool on which Tibb was seated.
1832–53. Whistle-binkie (Sc. Songs), Ser. III. 120. I grieve to see ye sit Sae laigh upon your cutty stool In sic a dorty fit!
2. Formerly, in Scotland, a particular seat in a church, where offenders against chastity, or other delinquents, had to sit during the time of divine service and receive a public rebuke from the minister; the stool of repentance. Also fig.
a. 1774. Fergusson, Farmer’s Ingle, Poems (1845), 37. Marion for a bastard son Upon the cutty stool was forced to ride.
1791. Newte, Tour Eng. & Scot., 251. In most of the kirks there is a small gallery … painted black, placed in an elevated situation, near the roof of the church, which they call the cutty-stool, and on which offenders against chastity are forced to sit.
1818. Keats, Life & Lett., I. 170. If he does I must sit on the cutty-stool all next winter.
1871. C. Gibbon, Lack of Gold, viii. To sit in penance on the cutty-stool.
