Word.ws English Dictionary

cut through

cut through is the alternative form of cut-through.

Verb

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

  1. (transitive) To take a shortcut through.
    • I usually cut through the woods to get home, but last night it was too dark.
    Synonyms:
    cut across
  2. (idiomatic, transitive) To dispense with or quickly deal with (an issue that is seen as an obstruction or waste of time).
    • Can we cut through the bureaucracy and make a decision on the spot?
  3. (figuratively) To reach (an audience etc.).
    • […] making the case that you cannot understand the climate crisis without understanding that there is an arch from slavery to colonialism and imperialism to the climate crisis … Now we are seeing those arguments cut through.2021 December 27, Matthew Taylor, quoting Asad Rehman, “Asad Rehman on climate justice: ‘Now we are seeing these arguments cut through’”, in The Guardian, →ISSN
  4. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see cut, through.

Meaning of cut-through

Noun

cut-through (countable and uncountable, plural cut-throughs)

  1. (countable) A shortcut; a path, road or route that is used to avoid a longer journey.
  2. (figuratively, uncountable) Reach; influence.
    • It is the public mood that a party needs to assess and then recast in order to achieve cut-through and gain votes.2022 March 29, Dr Peter Mangan, “What Labour must do to cut through to voters”, in The Guardian, →ISSN, Letters

Synonyms of cut through

Forms of cut through

Noun
pluralcut throughs
Verb
third-person singular presentcuts through
present participlecutting through
past participlecut through
pastcut through

Questions about cut through

What does cut through mean?
Cut through means to take a shortcut through.
What is cut through the alternative form of?
Cut through is the alternative form of cut-through.
What part of speech is cut through?
Cut through is a verb.
What is the past tense of cut through?
The past tense of cut through is cut through.

Words near cut through in the dictionary

  1. cut the rug
  2. cut the shit
  3. cut the umbilical cord
  4. cut throat
  5. cut throats
  6. cut through
  7. cut throughs
  8. cut ties
  9. cut time
  10. cut to black
  11. cut to Hecuba

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cut through (page history and authors); cut-through (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-cut through.ogg.

Cite this entry: “cut through.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cut_through. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.