sea puss

Noun

sea puss (plural sea pusses)

1. A strong seaward current; a riptide or undertow, especially as results when a sandbar formed by waves suddenly gives way, and which is dangerous to swimmers.
   • Sometimes owing to a peculiar formation of the coast, the waves are brought together in an angle, indenting the shore in such a way that this return flow, or undertow, runs out to sea in a continuous stream, which is called a sea-puss. The sea-puss is of variable width—from twenty or thirty feet to...1877 August, N. B. Emerson, “Sea-Bathing”, in The Sailors' Magazine and Seamen's Friend, volume 49, number 8, page 227
   • On the afternoon of the date mentioned the wind was blowing offshore and the tide was running in, forming sea pusses at intervals along the shore. We swam out to where the bar had been. Finding that it had shifted, we turned to come back and found that the ide had carried us into a sea puss, and...1911 October 25, Millicent F. Eady and Calvin T. Allison, a letter published in 1913 in the Annual Report of the United States Life-Saving Service, page 96
2. The (flowing) channel which results when a cut is made (often deliberately by humans) in a barrier beach which separates a bay from an ocean, so as to control the water level in the bay (which affects water mills) and its salinity (which affects shellfish).