View synonyms 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. By the mid-1800s it was being used figuratively. Charles Dickens had it in Great Expectations (1861): “I'd give a shilling if they had cut and run.” Also see cut out, def. 7.

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