▪ I. cut-off, n.
(ˈkʌtˈɒf, attrib. ˈkʌtɒf)
[cut v. 56.]
1. An act of cutting off or portion cut off.
| 1741 Richardson Pamela II. 151 This, though, was a great Cut-off; a whole Week out of ten Days. 1954 J. Southward Mod. Printing (ed. 7) II. xv. 212 Cut off is the amount [sc. of paper] severed from the webs to form individual copies of an edition. |
2. a. A new and shorter passage cut by a river through a bend; sometimes also applied to the crescent-shaped lake formed by the remains of the old channel when cut off from the new by silting. Also, a lateral channel dug across a bend in a river (also attrib.). orig. U.S.
| 1773 Acts Gen. Assembly Georgia (1881) 300 To make any such cut off as shall be thought necessary from River to River. Ibid., In such Cuts off and Clearing. 1817 S. R. Brown Western Gaz. 222 It is about four miles across the several branches of the Pascagola..intersected by bayous and cut-offs. 1830 Lyell Princ. Geol. I. 186 At one spot called the ‘grand cut off’, vessels now pass from one point to another in half a mile, to a distance which it formerly required twenty miles to reach. 1874 in N. H. Bishop Voy. Paper Canoe (1878) 223 If you take to the cut-offs, you may get into..interior bayous, from which you will never emerge. 1913 Thomas & Watt Improvem. Rivers (ed. 2) i. 27 When a bend has become almost a complete curve, the river breaks through the intervening neck of land and forms a cut-off. Ibid. ii. 337 The entire river was dammed at or near the upper part of a sharp bend, and a cut-off or lateral canal was dug across the bend from the pool thus formed. Ibid. 367 Cut-off walls resting on the river-bed. 1937 Wooldridge & Morgan Physical Basis Geogr. xii. 173 The abandoned loops form ‘cut-offs’, ‘ox-bows’ or ‘mortlakes’ which, in time, become silted up. |
b. A piece of road or railway which cuts off or saves a bend; a short cut, cross-cut.
| 1806 Z. M. Pike Jrnl. 28 Jan. in Sources Mississ. (1810) i. 64 Observed Mr. Grant's trackes going through it; found his mark of a cut off, (agreed on between us) took it, and proceeded very well. 1818 Boston Weekly Messenger 23 July (Th.), They pointed [it] out to him as being a nigh cut⁓off to the high road. 1881 Chicago Times 14 May, The Company is..building a cut-off six miles in length near Omaha. 1908 Westm. Gaz. 31 Dec. 3/1 The Great Western's Ashendon to Aynho ‘cut-off’, which will provide that company with a new route to Birmingham, nineteen miles shorter than its existing one. 1924 W. M. Raine Troubled Waters iii. 29 Evidently she was taking the cut-off back to the ranch, unaware that the bridge had been washed out by the freshet. 1947 J. Steinbeck Wayward Bus i. 6 Those who came over the cut-off from San Juan de la Cruz. |
3. a. An interruption or stopping of a continuance or flow. Also attrib.
| 1881 T. Stevenson in Nature XXIII. 560 Difficulty..of effecting a sharp cut-off on a particular bearing. 1956 Kenyon Rev. XVIII. 417 Abrupt voice cutoff. 1966 M. A. K. Halliday in C. E. Bazell In Memory of J. R. Firth 152 Lexis seems to require the recognition merely of linear co-occurrence together with some measure of significant proximity, either a scale or at least a cut-off point. 1970 Globe & Mail (Toronto) 25 Sept. B10/2 The cutoff day for commitments in the current quarter is Wednesday. 1971 Times 23 Jan. 18/1 It is used here as a cut-off point between the poor and the rest of the community. |
b. spec. Steam-engine. An arrangement by which the admission of steam to the cylinder is cut off when the piston has travelled part of the stroke, so that the steam during the remainder of the stroke works expansively; a contrivance for effecting this purpose. Also attrib.
| 1849 Fairbairn in Mec. Mag. LI. 258 The space between the cut-off valve and the working cylinder. 1850 Pract. Mech. Jrnl. III. 29 All the requirements of an accurate self-regulating cut-off. 1891 Engineer 18 Sept. LXII. 229 This valve gear has an unusually large range of cut-off. |
c. Applied to various mechanical contrivances for stopping the flow of a liquid, cutting off or closing a connexion, and the like.
| 1874 Knight Dict. Mech., Cut-off..2. a valve or gate in a spout, to stop discharge..3. a device in a rain-water spout to send the falling water in either of two directions. 1886 Pall Mall G. 26 Mar. 12/1 Cut-off for hydraulic and other engines. |
d. fig.
| 1859 Saxe Poems, Early Rising ii, Who first invented..That artificial cut-off—Early Rising. |
e. In a magazine rifle, a device which prevents the feeding of cartridges from the magazine into the chamber, and enables the rifle to be used as a single-loader.
| 1890 Times 6 Dec. 15/4 The cut-off is a strong and simple arrangement for bringing the magazine into action or for cutting it off. 1898 Daily News 9 May 3/1 Magazine Cut-off. 1904 Westm. Gaz. 9 Dec. 7/2 As the Navy considered that a cut-off was necessary this..is fitted to all naval rifles. 1919 ‘Boyd Cable’ Old Contemptibles ix. 141 In a twinkling every man..had his rifle muzzle over the parapet, and his fingers busy with magazine and cut⁓off. |
f. An automatic safety device for shutting off light, esp. the light of a cinema-projector.
| 1906 Daily Chron. 28 June 2/7 Automatic cut-off devices. 1917 C. N. Bennett Guide to Kinematography ix. 146 Before the condenser..is a safety device called the hand light cut-off. 1923 F. A. Talbot Moving Pictures ix. 119 The ‘cut-off’, an automatic safety shutter, mounted between the lamp and the film, which falls to intercept the light when the machine is at rest. |
g. Chiefly Electr. A marked increase in the attenuation (or decrease in the amplification) of an oscillation when its frequency reaches some value, esp. of an alternating current or voltage by a filter, waveguide, etc.; usu. attrib., as cut-off frequency, cut-off point.
| 1926 Franklin & Terman Transmission Line Theory v. 141 This frequency is called the cut-off frequency of the high-pass filter, for it marks the transition from pass to attenuated frequencies. 1930 Bell System Techn. Jrnl. IX. iii. 483 The cutoff points are taken as those at which the attenuation reaches a value 10 db greater than that at 1,000 cycles. 1930 Discovery Dec. 398/2 The directional filter offers very little attenuation to frequencies on one side of a certain frequency (cut-off frequency). 1959 Chambers's Encycl. XII. 735/1 The capacitative reactance of the air chamber in front of the diaphragm tends to raise the frequency at which this occurs, but results in a much sharper cut off at still higher frequencies. 1970 D. F. Shaw Introd. Electronics (ed. 2) xii. 272 The current gain of a transistor falls off at high frequencies... This frequency dependence is expressed accurately by the expression αf = α0/(1 + jf/fα) where..fα is called the alpha cut-off frequency. |
▸ orig. U.S. In pl.: unhemmed shorts made by cutting off the bottom portion of the legs of a pair of trousers (usually jeans); shorts designed in imitation of this style. Cf. cut-off adj. Additions.
| 1964 Lima (Ohio) News 20 Mar. 3/1 (advt.) We have the ‘original’ Wrangler cut-offs at this special sale price! 1978 J. Updike Coup (1979) vi. 236 Wearing..tattered denim cut-offs. 1984 New Yorker 9 July 42/3 We probably looked ridiculous—five girls in cutoffs, football T-shirts, and moccasins. 2004 Outside Mar. 62/2 With his bare chest, camo cutoffs, and Lawrence of Arabia headgear, he looked like a parody of Lady Liberty. |
▪ II. cut-off, a.
(ˈkʌtˈɒf)
[See cut v. 56.]
1. = cut-away.
| 1840 Ann. Reg. 8 Dressed in a cut-off green coat with brass buttons. |
2. Shut out, excluded, remote (see cut v. 56 h). Hence cut-offness, the state or condition of being cut off.
| 1894 M. Dyan All in Man's Keeping I. xii. 203 Would he never lose this cut-off feeling, this awful ache for comradeship? 1927 D. H. Lawrence Let. 3 Aug. (1962) II. 993 Our being cut off..is our ailment... I wish I saw a little clearer how you get over the cut-offness. 1939 J. Cary Mr. Johnson 92 The poorer, more cut-off people do not want roads. 1960 Encounter XV. 73 The cut-off-ness of the modern ‘intellectual man’ from the world. |
▸ orig. U.S. Designating trousers (usually jeans) made into unhemmed shorts by cutting off the bottom portion of the legs; designating shorts designed in imitation of this style.
| 1954 R. Jarrell Pictures from Institution ii. 69 Three devoted music students in cut-off jeans and men's pink Oxford shirts. 1968H. S. Thompson Let. in Fear & Loathing in Amer. (2000) 7, Boom around the midnight streets wearing a sweatshirt and cut-off levis and Wellington boots. 2003 Canberra Times (Nexis) 15 June a2 Their white look, which will include plain stretch cut-off shorts with..side splits, extended waistbands and big loops. |