Cutty-sark (witch) "chemise", or "shirt". The earliest recorded literary usage of the term "cutty sark" (as opposed to older usage of the two separate words) is by Dougal Graham in c. 1779 (the year of his death): "A cutty sark of guide harn sheet, My mitter he pe spin, mattam." In Burns' 1791 poem Tam o' Shanter, the drunken Tam, riding home on his horse, happens upon a witches' dance. Among the dancing figures is a particularly beautiful young witch named Nannie (Scots pet-form of Anna), "ae winsome wench and wawlie" (line 164). She is wearing a "harn" (linen) "sark" (nightshirt) which
Cutty Sark external timbers were secured by Muntz metal (brass) bolts to the internal iron frame and the hull covered by Muntz sheeting up to the depth mark. The stem () and sternpost () were of teak while the rudder was of English oak. The keel was replaced in the 1920s with one constructed from pitch pine. The deck was made of thick teak while the 'tween deck was yellow pine. Her length was with a draft of and a deadweight of 921 tons. The maximum logged speed for "Cutty Sark" was . The speed of a sailing ship is not so