cut

Reading level: easy

Estimated CEFR level: A1 — Beginner

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

  1. noun a share of the profits
  2. noun (film) an immediate transition from one shot to the next
  3. noun a trench resembling a furrow that was made by erosion or excavation

Etymology

From Middle English cutten, of North Germanic origin, from Old Norse *kytja, *kutta, from Proto-Germanic *kutjaną, *kuttaną (“to cut”), of uncertain origin, perhaps related to Proto-Germanic *kwetwą (“meat, flesh”) (compare Old Norse kvett (“meat”)). Sometimes instead compared to French couteau, itself from Latin culter (“knife”). Compare Scots kut, kit (“to cut”)); also akin to Middle Swedish kotta (“to cut or carve with a knife”) (compare dialectal Swedish kåta, kuta (“to cut or chip with a knife”), Swedish kuta, kytti (“a knife”)), Norwegian Bokmål kutte (“to cut”), Norwegian Nynorsk kutte (“to cut”), Icelandic kuta (“to cut with a knife”), Old Norse kuti (“small knife”), Norwegian kyttel, kytel, kjutul (“pointed slip of wood used to strip bark”). Displaced native Middle English snithen (from Old English snīþan; compare German schneiden), which still survives in some dialects as snithe or snead. See snide. Adjective sense of "drunk" (now rare and now usually used in the originally jocular derivative form of half-cut) dates from the 17th century, from cut in the leg, to have cut your leg, euphemism for being very drunk.

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