First recorded in 1820–30
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Defying increasingly popular mass-production techniques, second-generation paper cutter Yuridia Torres Alfaro, 49, still makes her own stencils at her family’s workshop in Xochimilco, on the rural southern edge of Mexico City.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 27, 2022
Using a 19th-century guillotine-style paper cutter, Wagner cut thousands of pieces of paper in 10 different sizes, all rectangles in the same proportions that Powers favors.
From New York Times ● Jan. 11, 2022
Wildes headed to a paper cutter at the other end of Interact Center for the Visual and Performing Arts in St. Paul and began slicing his picture into 1-inch strips.
From Washington Times ● May 12, 2018
Reston’s Molly O’Boyle is particularly fond of the sound of a tabletop paper cutter doing its job.
From Washington Post
I peek into the bag at my feet: a paper cutter, white card stock, and a tin of forty-eight colored pencils, twelve more than the set I have.
From "Rules" by Cynthia Lord
They had not yet built any new Jerusalem, and the sword in their hand sometimes seemed hardly more than a paper-cutter.
From Time Magazine Archive
"I'm not surprised at that," said Barclay slowly, fingering a paper-cutter on the desk before him.
From The Lieutenant-Governor A Novel by Guy Wetmore Carryl
I would 340 let the paper-cutter take my place; but I am sorry to say the little wooden seaman did after the manner of seamen, and deserted in the Societies.
From The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 24 (of 25) by Robert Louis Stevenson
On the top of these lay a little volume of Emerson’s essays, with a paper-cutter marking the page.
From Ecstasy: A Study of Happiness A Novel by Louis Couperus
“I see,” said the lawyer, balancing a paper-cutter upon his forefinger.
From The Fire Trumpet A Romance of the Cape Frontier by Bertram Mitford
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
