Library / English Dictionary

CUT SHORT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Terminate or abbreviate before its intended or proper end or its full extent

Example:

Personal freedom is curtailed in many countries

Synonyms:

clip; curtail; cut short

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "cut short" is one way to...):

shorten (make shorter than originally intended; reduce or retrench in length or duration)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Sense 2

Meaning:

Make shorter as if by cutting off

Example:

Erosion has truncated the ridges of the mountains

Synonyms:

cut short; truncate

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "cut short" is one way to...):

shorten (make shorter than originally intended; reduce or retrench in length or duration)

"Cut short" entails doing...:

chop off; cut off; lop off (remove by or as if by cutting)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Sense 3

Meaning:

Interrupt before its natural or planned end

Example:

We had to cut short our vacation

Synonyms:

break off; break short; cut short

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "cut short" is one way to...):

break; interrupt (terminate)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "cut short"):

hang up (interrupt a telephone conversation)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Sense 4

Meaning:

Cause to end earlier than intended

Example:

The spontaneous applause cut the singer short

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "cut short" is one way to...):

disrupt; interrupt (interfere in someone else's activity)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody

Credits

 Context examples: 

He was cut short by the eager attacks of the little boys, clinging to him like an old friend, and declaring he should not go; and being too much engrossed by proposals of carrying them away in his coat pockets, &c., to have another moment for finishing or recollecting what he had begun, Anne was left to persuade herself, as well as she could, that the same brother must still be in question.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)