Word.ws English Dictionary

cut someone off at the knees

cut someone off at the knees verb: to abruptly thwart someone, shut them down, or put them in their place.

Verb

cut someone off at the knees (third-person singular simple present cuts someone off at the knees, present participle cutting someone off at the knees, simple past and past participle cut someone off at the knees)

  1. To abruptly thwart someone, shut them down, or put them in their place.

Forms of cut someone off at the knees

third-person singular presentcuts someone off at the knees
present participlecutting someone off at the knees
past participlecut someone off at the knees
pastcut someone off at the knees
alternative formcut someone off at their knees

Questions about cut someone off at the knees

What does cut someone off at the knees mean?
Cut someone off at the knees means to abruptly thwart someone, shut them down, or put them in their place.
What part of speech is cut someone off at the knees?
Cut someone off at the knees is a verb.
What is the past tense of cut someone off at the knees?
The past tense of cut someone off at the knees is cut someone off at the knees.

Words near cut someone off at the knees in the dictionary

  1. cut slingload
  2. cut some shapes
  3. cut someone cold
  4. cut someone dead
  5. cut someone loose
  6. cut someone off at the knees
  7. cut someone slack
  8. cut someone some slack
  9. cut someone's comb
  10. cut someone's throat
  11. cut splice

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cut someone off at the knees (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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Cite this entry: “cut someone off at the knees.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cut_someone_off_at_the_knees. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.