Word.ws English Dictionary

cut the fool

cut the fool verb: to fool around; to put on a show; to behave foolishly.

Verb

cut the fool (third-person singular simple present cuts the fool, present participle cutting the fool, simple past and past participle cut the fool)

  1. (Southern US, intransitive) To fool around; to put on a show; to behave foolishly.
    • She said to him, "You taught them bird-dogs to rock in a rocking-chair just to torment me. Ever' beast or varmint you've brought home, you've learned to cut the fool as bad as you do."1940, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, When the Whippoorwill, page 28
    • Joe Slater danced fancy steps, and made the people laugh. "He shore can cut the fool!" they said.1945, Lois Lenski, Strawberry Girl, page 85

Forms of cut the fool

third-person singular presentcuts the fool
present participlecutting the fool
past participlecut the fool
pastcut the fool

Questions about cut the fool

What does cut the fool mean?
Cut the fool means to fool around; to put on a show; to behave foolishly.
What part of speech is cut the fool?
Cut the fool is a verb.
What is the past tense of cut the fool?
The past tense of cut the fool is cut the fool.

Words near cut the fool in the dictionary

  1. cut the bullshit
  2. cut the cheese
  3. cut the coat according to the cloth
  4. cut the cord
  5. cut the crap
  6. cut the fool
  7. cut the Gordian knot
  8. cut the ground from under someone's feet
  9. cut the knot
  10. cut the mustard
  11. cut the muster

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cut the fool (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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