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

It was all over in about an hour, with people toward the back of the line dispersing once it became clear they wouldn’t make the cutoff.

From Los Angeles Times

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III sent a letter to their Israeli counterparts suggesting a cutoff of U.S. military aid was possible if more aid trucks didn’t reach the Palestinian population there.

From Los Angeles Times

When Costa-Hawkins became law it barred cities that established cutoff dates for rent control from extending them, while allowing other jurisdictions to impose rent control on buildings built up to 1995.

From Los Angeles Times

All those cities had a cutoff date of when the units were built, after which the rent caps didn’t apply.

From Los Angeles Times

For all his weariness, Biden has refused to stop supplying Israel with weapons because he knows that, if he made that move, U.S. support of Israel’s basic defense—its right to exist—would seem wobbly and that Iran would take the cutoff as a signal to escalate.

From Slate