cookie-cutter
cookie-cutter adjective: having a similar appearance or seeming identical; created by some standard or common means, often with the implication that the result is common, boring, or not applicable to all needs. Also the alternative form of cookie cutter.
Adjective
cookie-cutter (comparative more cookie-cutter, superlative most cookie-cutter)
- Having a similar appearance or seeming identical; created by some standard or common means, often with the implication that the result is common, boring, or not applicable to all needs.
- The subdivision was nothing but row after row of cookie-cutter houses.
- I don't think a cookie-cutter solution will work in all cases.
- Synonyms:
- cookie-cuttered, cookie-cutterish
Verb
cookie-cutter (third-person singular simple present cookie-cutters, present participle cookie-cuttering, simple past and past participle cookie-cuttered)
- To produce, design, or approach something in a formulaic, mass-produced or unoriginal manner, often ensuring all the outputs are identical.
- Ever since USA Today arrived with its bar graphs, its color-coded weather maps (red means hot, boys and girls!), its stick-figure journalism, its pages cookie-cuttered by brights and factoids and its expert trivializing of everything from wars to nutrition, the craft of newspapering meant nothing...1991, Paul Daugherty, “The Write Stuff, What A Shame Nobody Wants To Read It Anymore”, in Cincinnati Magazine, volume 24, number 11, page 58
- in arts funding, and possibly cookie-cuttering the program in other Blue Fish locations across the country.1995, Alan Reder, 75 Best Business Practices for Socially Responsible Companies, page 202
Also used as
cookie-cutter is also the alternative form of cookie cutter.
Examples of cookie-cutter in a sentence
- Nothing that the uniformity-haters can say is beyond the mark; there is an appalling degree of sameness, of cookie-cutter character and outlook, stamped out with neatness, regularity, and despatch.1927, Alfred Emanuel Smith, New Outlook, volume 145:
- Whether we call it a culture or a subculture, it is always important to avoid the cookie-cutter view of culture, with regard to the individual and to the culture or subculture involved.1969, Bureau Publication:
- Their training is therefore more cookie-cutter than individualized.1997, Herb Miller, Leadership is the Key: Unlocking Your Effectiveness in Ministry, page 39:
- In the end, medicine is much more cookie-cutter than doctors care to admit, and we can exploit that.”2004, Lisa Gardner, The Other Daughter, page 214:
Synonyms of cookie-cutter
Forms of cookie-cutter
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more cookie-cutter |
| superlative | most cookie-cutter |
| Noun | |
| plural | cookie-cutters |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | cookie-cutters |
| present participle | cookie-cuttering |
| past participle | cookie-cuttered |
| past | cookie-cuttered |
Words formed from cookie-cutter
Questions about cookie-cutter
- What does cookie-cutter mean?
- Cookie-cutter means having a similar appearance or seeming identical; created by some standard or common means, often with the implication that the result is common, boring, or not applicable to all needs.
- How do you use cookie-cutter in a sentence?
- Nothing that the uniformity-haters can say is beyond the mark; there is an appalling degree of sameness, of cookie-cutter character and outlook, stamped out with neatness, regularity, and despatch.
- What part of speech is cookie-cutter?
- Cookie-cutter can be an adjective or a verb.
Words near cookie-cutter in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: cookie-cutter (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “cookie-cutter.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cookie-cutter. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.