Cuts

How to spell cuts

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce cuts

What does cuts mean?

1. verbDivides or shortens something with a sharp edge, or reduces an amount.
2. nounReductions, wounds, or pieces produced by cutting.

Cuts in a sentence

• verb

  The new blade cuts through cardboard with ease.

• noun

  The budget cuts forced the hospital to close two wards.

• verb

  The council cuts funding for the library every spring.

• noun

  Deep cuts on his hands took weeks to heal.

Where does cuts come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The base word 'cut' is first recorded in English around the 1200s, with an origin that remains genuinely uncertain; it may derive from an unrecorded Old English verb or from a Scandinavian source related to Old Norse and dialectal words for slicing and notching. Whatever its exact ancestor, it quickly displaced older native verbs such as 'snithe' and 'carve' for the general idea of dividing something with a sharp edge. Over the centuries the sense widened far beyond the blade: by the 1500s and later it covered shortening, omitting, and reducing things of all kinds, from a 'cut' of meat to a 'cut' in pay. The plural and present-tense form simply adds the regular '-s' ending, so the spelling holds no real trap. Because the word is short, blunt, and ancient, it sits at the very heart of everyday English vocabulary.

How the word is built

• cut (to sever or reduce)
• -s (plural noun / third-person singular verb ending)