cut and dried

• cut-and-dried (when modifying a noun)
• cut and dry (less common)

1710, from herbs being cut and dried for sale, rather than fresh.

cut and dried (not comparable)

1. Simple, straightforward, clear, or certain.

   Synonyms: clear cut, open-and-shut, res ipsa loquitur

   Take care when guessing, since problems do not always have cut-and-dried answers.

   • 1904 September, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “The Adventure of the Abbey Grange”, in The Return of Sherlock Holmes, New York, N.Y.: McClure, Phillips & Co., published February 1905, →OCLC:

     But if I had not taken things for granted, if I had examined everything with the care which I should have shown had we approached the case de novo and had no cut-and-dried story to warp my mind, should I not then have found something more definite to go upon?

2. Decided, not open to change.

   Synonyms: set, settled

   • 1949, Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman, act 2:

     Willy: […] In those days there was personality in it. There was respect, and comradeship, and gratitude in it. Today, it's all cut and dried, and there's no chance for bringing friendship to bear—or personality.

3. (obsolete) Lacking freshness or spontaneity.

In formal usage, the form cut and dried is more common than cut and dry, and the meaning is rather “settled” than “clear”, and mildly pejorative, following original usage and etymology. Sense of “clear, straightforward” may be influenced by clear cut, which may be preferred.

• all over but the shouting
• done deal

• cut and dry / cut and dried, Paul Brians, Common Errors in English Usage (2nd Edition, November, 2008)
• Re: cut and dried, ESC, January 06, 2001, The Phrase Finder
• Michael Quinion (2004) “Cut and dried”, in Ballyhoo, Buckaroo, and Spuds: Ingenious Tales of Words and Their Origins, Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books in association with Penguin Books, →ISBN.
• “cut and dried”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “cut-and-dried”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “cut-and-dried”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.
• “cut and dried”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.
• cut and dried, cut-and-dried, cut and dry, cut-and-dry at Google Ngram Viewer