Word.ws English Dictionary

cutaway

/ˈkʌtəweɪ/

cutaway noun: a men's coat with the front cut back away from the waist, as worn on formal occasions. Also the abbreviation of cutaway bog.

Noun

cutaway (plural cutaways)

  1. A men's coat with the front cut back away from the waist, as worn on formal occasions.
    • Besides the broad-brimmed hat, he was distinguished by a spotted tie, a pair of seedy check trousers rather baggy in the seat, and a cut-away coat, much too tight for him.1913, Norman Lindsay, A Curate in Bohemia, Sydney: N.S.W. Bookstall Co., published 1932, page 96
  2. A diagram or model having outer layers removed so as to show the interior.
    • [...] The two assets of the book are clear explanation, and a multitude of extremely helpful diagrams, some in two colours, and cutaway photographs; these clearly unravel a difficult subject for the layman, as well as the student engineman for whom the primer is chiefly designed.1959 March, “New Reading on Railways: The Railwayman's Diesel Manual. By William F. Bolton. G. H. Lake. 7s. 6d.”, in Trains Illustrated, page 172
  3. A brief shot that temporarily takes the viewer away from the principal action, especially to show a reaction, illustration etc.; an instance of moving to such a shot.
    • Despite a pre-debate “memorandum of understanding” between the Bush campaign and the Kerry campaign that there would be no televised “cutaways” or reaction shots […]2004 October 18, The New Yorker
    • [T]he director struggles to jazz up his stilted blocking with clumsy montage cutaways, which are only effective in the upbeat, darkly funny number “Sincerely, Me,” in which Evan dreams up a dance-filled fantasy of his fake friendship with Connor.2021 September 22, Caroline Siede, “Dear Evan Hansen is a misfire on just about every level”, in AV Club
  4. An indentation in the upper bout of a guitar's body adjacent to the neck, allowing easier access to the upper frets.
  5. A guitar having a cutaway.

Adjective

cutaway (not comparable)

  1. (illustration) Having selected portions of the outside removed so as to give an impression of the interior.
    • While it used to take several seconds to generate a single cutaway view in a complex freeform model, you can now view them just about instantly by dynamically scrolling and rotating a plane forward and backward through an object.2004 January, CADalyst

Also used as

cutaway is also the abbreviation of cutaway bog.

Forms of cutaway

pluralcutaways
alternative formcut-away

Plural of cutaway: cutaways

Origin of cutaway

Deverbal from cut away.

Phrases with cutaway

Questions about cutaway

What does cutaway mean?
Cutaway means a men's coat with the front cut back away from the waist, as worn on formal occasions.
What part of speech is cutaway?
Cutaway can be a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce cutaway?
Cutaway is pronounced /ˈkʌtəweɪ/.
What is the plural of cutaway?
The plural of cutaway is cutaways.

Words near cutaway in the dictionary

  1. cutaneous rabbit effect
  2. cutaneous rabbit illusion
  3. cutaneously
  4. cutanic
  5. cutans
  6. cutaway
  7. cutaway bog
  8. cutaway bogs
  9. cutaways
  10. cutback
  11. cutbacks

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cutaway (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-cutaway.wav.

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