Word.ws English Dictionary

cut to the bone

cut to the bone verb: to reduce to the furthest extent possible, down to the bare essentials.

Verb

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

  1. To reduce to the furthest extent possible, down to the bare essentials.
    • Due to budget constraints, the company had to cut its expenses to the bone.

Forms of cut to the bone

third-person singular presentcuts to the bone
present participlecutting to the bone
past participlecut to the bone
pastcut to the bone

Questions about cut to the bone

What does cut to the bone mean?
Cut to the bone means to reduce to the furthest extent possible, down to the bare essentials.
What part of speech is cut to the bone?
Cut to the bone is a verb.
What is the past tense of cut to the bone?
The past tense of cut to the bone is cut to the bone.

Words near cut to the bone in the dictionary

  1. cut time
  2. cut to black
  3. cut to Hecuba
  4. cut to pieces
  5. cut to ribbons
  6. cut to the bone
  7. cut to the chase
  8. cut to the quick
  9. cut under
  10. cut up
  11. cut up nasty

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cut to the bone (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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