Word.ws English Dictionary

cut-and-cover

cut-and-cover adjective: a method of building tunnels just below the surface by excavating a large trench, constructing the tunnel and then covering it with soil.

Adjective

cut-and-cover (not comparable)

  1. A method of building tunnels just below the surface by excavating a large trench, constructing the tunnel and then covering it with soil.
    • The greater part of the railway was built on the cut-and-cover principle, but some sections were tunnelled with a head shield.1950 August, “Paris Metropolitan Railway Jubilee”, in Railway Magazine, page 505
    • On London Underground, there are the cut-and-cover lines running just below the surface, and the Tubes properly so-called, which are on average about 40 feet down.2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, page unnumbered: A note on the title

Forms of cut-and-cover

alternative formcut and cover

Questions about cut-and-cover

What does cut-and-cover mean?
Cut-and-cover means a method of building tunnels just below the surface by excavating a large trench, constructing the tunnel and then covering it with soil.
What part of speech is cut-and-cover?
Cut-and-cover is an adjective.

Words near cut-and-cover in the dictionary

  1. cut wind
  2. cut with a knife and fork
  3. cut work
  4. cut works
  5. cut-and-come-again
  6. cut-and-cover
  7. cut-and-dried
  8. cut-and-paste
  9. cut-and-run
  10. cut-and-runs
  11. cut-and-shut

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cut-and-cover (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.

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