cut out
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Forms: form: cuts out
form: cutting out
form: cut out
form: cut out
Senses: examples: text: Cut out the letters and paste them on the poster.
glosses: Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see cut, out. To separate into parts with or as if with a sharp-edged instrument; sever.
examples: text: He had to cut out smoking in order to be prepared for the marathon.
text: She kept clicking her heels. He told her to cut it out.
text: Hockey is an exciting and healthful form of exercise, well suited to college students, but if it is to retain favor the intercollegiate league should cut out the muckerism which has attended its contests on the ice in recent years.
ref: 1906, Princeton Alumni Weekly, volume 7, page 210:
text: “Cut that joshing out,” she said, coolly and briskly. “Who do you think you are talking to? Your check, please. Oh, Lordy!—”
ref: 1910, O. Henry [pseudonym; William Sydney Porter], “The Girl and the Habit”, in Strictly Business:
text: I have no wind, if you want to know the truth. I'm quite a heavy smoker, for one thing — that is, I used to be. They made me cut it out.
ref: 1951 July 16, J[erome] D[avid] Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company, →OCLC, page 8:
glosses: To refrain from (doing something, using something etc.), to stop or cease (doing something).
examples: text: If we cut out the middle-man, we will both have better profits.
text: Help me find a sharper knife
I need to cut you out my life
ref: 2015 May 12, Rachel Platten, Jon Levine, Scott Jacoby, “Congratulations”, in Fight Song, performed by Rachel Platten:
glosses: To remove; to omit.
examples: text: […] cut him out in the affections of his lady-love!
ref: 1899, Lady's Realm, volume 5, page 172:
glosses: To oust; to replace.
examples: text: There was little fear that the navigator of the captured Osprey, the man who had lived in Chile and "cut out" cattle on the Carrum Plains, would prove lacking in knowledge of riding, seamanship, or Spanish customs.
ref: 1874, Marcus Clarke, For the Term of His Natural Life, IV.2:
glosses: To separate (an animal) from the herd.
examples: text: It was around then that the engine suddenly cut out.
text: Can you say that again? You keep cutting out.
glosses: To stop working, to switch off; (of a person on the telephone etc.) to be inaudible, be disconnected.
examples: text: He must have cut out of the party.
glosses: To leave suddenly.
examples: text: He has his work cut out for him.
qualifier: usually passive voice
glosses: To arrange or prepare.
examples: text: As lax as the visitors' defence was, Blackpool's backline was solid. In the first half the Seasiders cut out final balls to Meireles, one of Liverpool's best players, on two occasions and after the break the brilliant Craig Cathcart got enough on his headed clearance to prevent Torres from planting into the net at the far post.
ref: 2011 January 12, Saj Chowdhury, “Liverpool 2 - 1 Liverpool”, in BBC:
glosses: To intercept.
topics: nautical
transport
glosses: To take a ship out of a harbor etc. by getting between her and the shore.
glosses: To serve time in prison as an alternative to paying fines.
Derived terms: cut-out
cutout
cut out the middleman