chopping down

Verb

chop down (third-person singular simple present chops down, present participle chopping down, simple past and past participle chopped down)

1. (transitive) Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see chop, down.
   • chop down a tree
2. (idiomatic, transitive) To curtail, shorten
   • In the final edit, the film was chopped down to two hours.
3. (dated, slang, transitive) To attack (someone) with a knife; to kill (someone), especially by shooting with an automatic weapon.