cutoff

[kuht-awf, -of]

noun

1. an act or instance of cutting off.

2. something that cuts off.

3. a road, passage, etc., that leaves another, usually providing a shortcut.

   Let's take the cutoff to Baltimore.

4. a new and shorter channel formed in a river by the water cutting across a bend in its course.

5. a point, time, or stage serving as the limit beyond which something is no longer effective, applicable, or possible.

6. cutoffs, Also cut-offs shorts made by cutting the legs off a pair of trousers, especially jeans, above the knees and often leaving the cut edges ragged.

7. Accounting.,  a selected point at which records are considered complete for the purpose of settling accounts, taking inventory, etc.

8. Baseball.,  an infielder's interception of a ball thrown from the outfield in order to relay it to home plate or keep a base runner from advancing.

9. Machinery.,  arrest of the steam moving the pistons of an engine, usually occurring before the completion of a stroke.

10. Electronics.,  (in a vacuum tube) the minimum grid potential preventing an anode current.

11. Rocketry.,  the termination of propulsion, either by shutting off the propellant flow or by stopping the combustion of the propellant.

adjective

1. being or constituting the limit or ending.

   a cutoff date for making changes.

Word History and Origins

Origin of cutoff¹

First recorded in 1735–45; noun use of verb phrase cut off

Example Sentences

More have extended their deadlines or recruited after the traditional May 1 cutoff, when incoming classes were previously considered locked in.

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The pandemic-era enhanced credit further cut out-of-pocket costs, paying more along the sliding scale and also also temporarily lifting the credit’s income cutoff, also known as the subsidy cliff.

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Some said they didn’t apply because they earned slightly more than the cutoff amounts for eligibility.

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Meanwhile the flight data recorder, he suggests, may have registered the command to shut off the fuel supply, rather than any physical movement of the cutoff switches in the cockpit.

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Many of the men went shirtless in the hot sun, their military pants chopped into cutoffs.

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