cut across

Related to cut across: look upon, grow out of, warn off, rolled out, bumped into, upped

cut across

vb (preposition)

1. (intr) to be contrary to ordinary procedure or limitations: opinion on European integration still cuts clean across party lines.

2. to cross or traverse, making a shorter route: she cut across the field quickly.

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

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Verb	1.	cut across - travel across or pass over; "The caravan covered almost 100 miles each day" cross, cut through, get over, traverse, pass over, get across, track, cover tramp - cross on foot; "We had to tramp the creeks" stride - cover or traverse by taking long steps; "She strode several miles towards the woods" walk - traverse or cover by walking; "Walk the tightrope"; "Paul walked the streets of Damascus"; "She walks 3 miles every day" crisscross - cross in a pattern, often random ford - cross a river where it's shallow bridge - cross over on a bridge jaywalk - cross the road at a red light drive, take - proceed along in a vehicle; "We drive the turnpike to work" go across, pass, go through - go across or through; "We passed the point where the police car had parked"; "A terrible thought went through his mind" course - move swiftly through or over; "ships coursing the Atlantic" hop - traverse as if by a short airplane trip; "Hop the Pacific Ocean"
	2.	cut across - be contrary to ordinary procedure or limitations; "Opinions on bombing the Serbs cut across party lines" be - have the quality of being; (copula, used with an adjective or a predicate noun); "John is rich"; "This is not a good answer"
	3.	cut across - cut using a diagonal line crosscut cut - separate with or as if with an instrument; "Cut the rope"

cut

verb

1. To penetrate with a sharp edge:

gash, incise, pierce, slash, slit.

2. To separate into parts with or as if with a sharp-edged instrument:

carve, cleave, dissever, sever, slice, slit, split.

3. To bring down, as with a saw or ax.Also used with down:

chop down, fell, hew.

4. To turn aside sharply from a straight course:

chop, sheer, skew, slue, swerve, veer.

Nautical: yaw.

5. To decrease, as in length or amount, by or as if by severing or excising:

chop, clip, crop, cut back, cut down, lop, lower, pare, prune, shear, slash, trim, truncate.

6. To lessen the strength of by or as if by admixture:

attenuate, dilute, thin, water (down), weaken.

7. To slight (someone) deliberately:

rebuff, shun, snub, spurn.

Informal: coldshoulder.

Idioms: close the door on, give someone the cold shoulder, give someone the go-by, turn one's back on.

8. To fail to attend on purpose:

truant.

Informal: skip.

Idioms: go AWOL, play hooky.

phrasal verb
cut across

To pass through or over:

crisscross, cross, crosscut, decussate, intersect.

phrasal verb
cut back

To decrease, as in length or amount, by or as if by severing or excising:

chop, clip, crop, cut, cut down, lop, lower, pare, prune, shear, slash, trim, truncate.

phrasal verb
cut down

1. To cause the death of:

carry off, cut off, destroy, dispatch, finish (off), kill, slay.

Slang: waste, zap.

Idioms: put an end to, put to sleep.

2. To cause to fall, as from a shot or blow:

bring down, down, drop, fell, flatten, floor, ground, knock down, level, prostrate, strike down, throw.

Slang: deck.

Idiom: lay low.

3. To decrease, as in length or amount, by or as if by severing or excising:

chop, clip, crop, cut, cut back, lop, lower, pare, prune, shear, slash, trim, truncate.

phrasal verb
cut in

1. To force or come in as an improper or unwanted element:

horn in, intrude, obtrude.

2. To interject remarks or questions into another's discourse:

break in, chime in, chip in, interrupt.

phrasal verb
cut off

1. To set apart from a group:

close off, insulate, isolate, seclude, segregate, separate, sequester.

2. To cause the death of:

carry off, cut down, destroy, dispatch, finish (off), kill, slay.

Slang: waste, zap.

Idioms: put an end to, put to sleep.

3. To block the progress of and force to change direction:

head off, intercept.

phrasal verb
cut out

1. To take the place of (another) against the other's will:

displace, supplant.

2. To desist from, cease, or discontinue (a habit, for example):

break, give up, leave off, stop.

Slang: kick.

3. Informal. To move or proceed away from a place:

depart, exit, get away, get off, go, go away, leave, pull out, quit, retire, run (along), withdraw.

Informal: push off, shove off.

Slang: blow, split, take off.

Idioms: hit the road, take leave.

phrasal verb
cut up

1. Informal. To behave in a rowdy, improper, or unruly fashion:

act up, carry on, misbehave.

Informal: horse around.

2. Informal. To find fault with:

blame, censure, criticize, fault, rap.

Informal: pan.

Slang: knock.

noun

1. The result of cutting:

gash, incision, slash, slice, slit, split.

2. A part severed from a whole:

piece, portion, section, segment, slice.

3. The act or process of decreasing:

abatement, curtailment, cutback, decrease, decrement, diminishment, diminution, drain, reduction, slash, slowdown, taper.

4. Informal. That which is allotted:

allocation, allotment, allowance, dole, lot, measure, part, portion, quantum, quota, ration, share, split.

Slang: divvy.

5. A deliberate slight:

rebuff, snub, spurn.

Informal: cold shoulder, go-by.

6. An unexcused absence:

truancy, truantry.

Informal: hooky.

Mentioned in ?

References in classic literature ?

Stuart made the short cut across the hills, avoiding this bend of the river, or had not some of his party accidentally gone down to the margin of the stream to drink, these poor wanderers might have remained undiscovered, and have perished in the wilderness.

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Only by following at some distance could one cut across the zigzag path of the French.

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I was glad that, catching sight of the clock at the Army and Navy Stores, he remembered an engagement to play cards at his club, and so left me to cut across St.

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By the road, Baywater was six miles away, but there was a short cut across hills and fields and woods which was scantly three.

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One afternoon, we cut across a narrow neck of land that saved us many miles, where the river wound to the west and back again.

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All we did was to keep an eye on him and see that he did not cut across our line of retreat.

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And before the wind we were, and leaping, when Johnson, easing his sheet at imminent peril, cut across our wake a hundred feet away.

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I remember him as if it were yesterday, as he came plodding to the inn door, his sea-chest following behind him in a hand-barrow--a tall, strong, heavy, nut-brown man, his tarry pigtail falling over the shoulder of his soiled blue coat, his hands ragged and scarred, with black, broken nails, and the sabre cut across one cheek, a dirty, livid white.

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It appeared, by what I could piece together of the unprofane fragments of his statement, that he had chanced upon Sir Ossaise at dawn of the morning, and been told that if he would make a short cut across the fields and swamps and broken hills and glades, he could head off a company of travelers who would be rare customers for prophylactics and tooth-wash.

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He knew a way to the north and his own country that the white men did not know--a short cut across an arid plateau where lay water holes of which the white hunters and explorers that had passed from time to time the fringe of the dry country had never dreamed.

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They went over to Orchard Slope by the short cut across the brook and up the firry hill grove.

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he swam to the cap, placed it on his head, seized one of the timbers, and struck out so as to cut across the course the vessel was taking.