CUTTING OFF

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does cutting off mean? 

• CUTTING OFF (noun)
  The noun CUTTING OFF has 2 senses:

1. the act of cutting something off

2. the act of shortening something by chopping off the ends

  Familiarity information: CUTTING OFF used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CUTTING OFF (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The act of cutting something off

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

abscission; cutting off

Hypernyms ("cutting off" is a kind of...):

remotion; removal (the act of removing)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "cutting off"):

circumcision (the act of circumcising; surgical removal of the foreskin of males)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The act of shortening something by chopping off the ends

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

cut; cutting; cutting off

Context example:

the barber gave him a good cut

Hypernyms ("cutting off" is a kind of...):

shortening (act of decreasing in length)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "cutting off"):

clip; clipping; snip (the act of clipping or snipping)

haircut (the act of cutting the hair)

clipping; trim; trimming (cutting down to the desired size or shape)

shearing (removing by cutting off or clipping)

 Context examples 

Then, approaching at right angles to the trail and cutting off his retreat they saw a dozen wolves, lean and grey, bounding across the snow.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

"What made you do it?" asked Amy, who would as soon have thought of cutting off her head as her pretty hair.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Fishermen engaged in illegal fishing of sharks usually resort to finning: cutting off the caught sharks’ fins and throwing the sharks back into the water, where they die in agony.

(New way to save endangered sharks – and our seafood, SciDev.Net)

The results suggest that cutting off lights at bedtime could reduce women’s chances of becoming obese.

(Sleeping with artificial light at night associated with weight gain in women, National Institutes of Health)

The son was to join in cutting off the entail, as soon as he should be of age, and the widow and younger children would by that means be provided for.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

Cutting off the afferent nerve supply.

(Deafferentation, NCI Thesaurus)

From thence, as a reward for his services, he was transferred as first lieutenant to the Aurora frigate, engaged in cutting off supplies from Genoa, and in her he still remained until long after peace was declared.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)