punctuation - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange
I assumed you would use dots to show left-out unnecessary text in a quote, such as in. The definition of used oil is "oil ... that is xyz". The deleted portion is non-useful text that would confuse my readers, but I want to show them that the cited passage is a direct quote from regulations except for leaving out some words.
Usage of "be cut out for" - English Language & Usage Stack …
Jun 20, 2016 · The idiom be cut out for means. " [USUALLY WITH NEGATIVE] have exactly the right qualities for a particular role, task, or job" (Oxford Dictionaries). As you see, the dictionary notes that it is usually used in a negative formation. The example sentence is, in fact, negative: "I'm just not cut out to be a policeman."
What are the origins for the phrases "Knock it off" and "Cut it out"?
Jan 4, 2013 · Knock off has numerous meanings, so it’s unlikely that there is one explanation for them all. The OED’s earliest citation in the sense ‘to dispatch, dispose of, put out of hand, accomplish; to complete or do hastily’ is dated 1817, but it has been used to mean ‘To cause to desist or leave off from work’ since 1651.
expressions - I've got my work cut out for me. Origin, meaning ...
Jun 1, 2018 · As the OED entry shows "cut out work" is work that has been prepared in advance by someone other than the person who will do it, e.g. I cut out 1,000 pieces of cloth; you sew them into a suit. Your work has been cut out for you. P.2.a. P.2.a.i. to cut out work (for a person): to prepare work to be done by a person; to give a person something to do.
vocabulary - cut / cut down * cut down on - English Language
Jul 10, 2015 · Cut down is most often used in reference to trees, as in he cut down the tree, meaning he sawed or hacked all the way through the trunk so as to make it fall. Rarely it's used as a synonym for being killed by gunfire, as in he was cut down by an assassin. Cut down on, on the other hand, has the sole meaning of "to reduce, use less of."
Cut the lights on - English Language & Usage Stack Exchange
Jul 11, 2013 · cut and run. To start quickly & run away. Christine Ammer, The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms, second edition (2013) has a more extensive entry for "cut and run": cut and run Clear out, escape, desert, as in He wished he could just cut and run. This term originally (about 1700) meant to cut a vessel[']s anchor cable and make sail at once.
Which is the correct usage - " the line is breaking off " or " the line ...
Oct 14, 2016 · When the other person's voice is affected by poor signal, we use 'the line is breaking up'.. If the the call is unintentionally ended because of poor signal, we use 'the line has cut off' (you could say 'the line has broken off', but idiomatically it's better to use 'cut off').
What's the origin of the idiom "to cut your teeth on something"?
May 27, 2013 · cut one's teeth on: to do at the beginning of one's education, career, etc., or in one's youth: The hunter boasted of having cut his teeth on tigers. It's a metaphoric reference to when a baby's teeth first appear. They grow (cut) through the gums - often painfully, which also gives us the figurative usage teething troubles.
Meaning of "Cut my legs out from under me"? [closed]
Sep 5, 2018 · be knocked down by something that hits one's legs very hard. When I learned that I was seriously ill, I felt as if my feet were cut out from under me. often used figuratively. When the program lost the grant its financial legs had been cut out from under it. According to MW's popularity index they list it as " Bottom 10% of words".
More eloquent idiom/expression for the phrase "cut it at the roots ...
Jul 22, 2016 · A very comparable idiom is "to cut the head off the snake" It means to stop a larger problem by aiming at the source - often the leader, or a major culprit. The implication is that the rest of the problem will naturally die off without that source. It is sometimes used in military situations to mean targeting the head of an organization.