Word.ws English Dictionary

cut one's cloth to suit one's purse

cut one's cloth to suit one's purse verb: to settle for less when money or resources are limited.

Verb

cut one's cloth to suit one's purse (third-person singular simple present cuts one's cloth to suit one's purse, present participle cutting one's cloth to suit one's purse, simple past and past participle cut one's cloth to suit one's purse)

  1. (idiomatic) To settle for less when money or resources are limited.
    • A super-educated fish whose purpose seems bent on humiliating us? Or does he cut his cloth to suit-his purse, becoming choosy when the occasion allows, returning to catholic tastes when times are harder?2004, Norman Marsh, Trout Stream Insects of New Zealand, page 189
    • If I had to go back then I would but I “cut my cloth to suit my purse” as my mum would have said and adjust to what I need and not fritter money away.2018 December 1, Amanda Hall-Davis, “I took a huge salary hit so I can make my daughters my priority”, in The Guardian

Forms of cut one's cloth to suit one's purse

third-person singular presentcuts one's cloth to suit one's purse
present participlecutting one's cloth to suit one's purse
past participlecut one's cloth to suit one's purse
pastcut one's cloth to suit one's purse

Questions about cut one's cloth to suit one's purse

What does cut one's cloth to suit one's purse mean?
Cut one's cloth to suit one's purse means to settle for less when money or resources are limited.
What part of speech is cut one's cloth to suit one's purse?
Cut one's cloth to suit one's purse is a verb.
What is the past tense of cut one's cloth to suit one's purse?
The past tense of cut one's cloth to suit one's purse is cut one's cloth to suit one's purse.

Words near cut one's cloth to suit one's purse in the dictionary

  1. cut off one's nose to spite one's face
  2. cut offs
  3. cut on
  4. cut one
  5. cut one loose
  6. cut one's cloth to suit one's purse
  7. cut one's coat according to one's cloth
  8. cut one's eyeteeth
  9. cut one's losses
  10. cut one's lucky
  11. cut one's own throat

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cut one's cloth to suit one's purse (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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