cutting out

Verb

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

1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see cut, out. To sever from something larger, with or as if with a sharp-edged instrument.
   • Cut out the letters and paste them on the poster.
2. (informal, transitive) To refrain from (doing something, using something etc.), to stop or cease (doing something).
   • He had to cut out smoking in order to be prepared for the marathon.
3. (transitive) To remove; to omit.
   • If we cut out the middle-man, we will both have better profits.
4. (transitive) To oust; to replace.
   • […] cut him out in the affections of his lady-love!1899, Lady's Realm, volume 5, page 172
5. (Australia, New Zealand, US) To separate (an animal) from the herd.
   • There was little fear that the navigator of the captured Osprey, the man who had lived in Chile and "cut out" cattle on the Carrum Plains, would prove lacking in knowledge of riding, seamanship, or Spanish customs.1874, Marcus Clarke, For the Term of His Natural Life, IV.2
6. (intransitive) To stop working, to switch off; (of a person on the telephone etc.) to be inaudible, be disconnected.
   • It was around then that the engine suddenly cut out.

See all 13 meanings of cut out