cutoff: Meaning and Definition of
cut•off
Pronunciation: (kut'ôf", -of"), [key]
— n.
- an act or instance of cutting off.
- something that cuts off.
- a road, passage, etc., that leaves another, usually providing a shortcut: Let's take the cutoff to Baltimore.
- a new and shorter channel formed in a river by the water cutting across a bend in its course.
- a point, time, or stage serving as the limit beyond which something is no longer effective, applicable, or possible.
- shorts made by cutting the legs off a pair of trousers, esp. jeans, above the knees and often leaving the cut edges ragged.
- a selected point at which records are considered complete for the purpose of settling accounts, taking inventory, etc.
- 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.
- arrest of the steam moving the pistons of an engine, usually occurring before the completion of a stroke.
- (in a vacuum tube) the minimum grid potential preventing an anode current.
- the termination of propulsion, either by shutting off the propellant flow or by stopping the combustion of the propellant.
—adj.
- being or constituting the limit or ending: a cutoff date for making changes.
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.