cutter

From Middle English cutter, cuttere, kutter; equivalent to cut +‎ -er.

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈkʌtɚ/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkʌtə/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌtə(ɹ)

cutter (plural cutters)

1. A person or device that cuts (in various senses).

   a stone cutter; a die cutter

   In some CNC programs, the diameter of the cutter (such as an end mill) is handled by cutter compensation codes.

   • 1982, The Movies, page 288:

     The intervening years, however, were spent as a cutter. He was, indeed, one of the best film editors in the business, winning an Academy Award for Body and Soul (1947).

   • 1988, Jorge Amado, Home is the Sailor, page 55:

     Chico Pacheco kept repeating the phrase between clenched teeth, lamenting the wasted days of his youth; he had been a notorious cutter of classes.

2. (nautical) A single-masted, fore-and-aft rigged, sailing vessel with at least two headsails, and a mast set further aft than that of a sloop.
3. A foretooth; an incisor.
   • 1691, John Ray, The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of the Creation. […], London: […] Samuel Smith, […], →OCLC:

     the Cutters and Eye-teeth have usually but one Root

4. A heavy-duty motor boat for official use.

   a coastguard cutter.

5. (nautical) A ship's boat, used for transport ship-to-ship or ship-to-shore.
6. (cricket) A ball that moves sideways in the air, or off the pitch, because it has been cut.
7. (baseball) A cut fastball.
8. (slang) A ten-pence piece. So named because it is the coin most often sharpened by prison inmates to use as a weapon.
9. (informal) A person who practices self-injury by making cuts in the flesh.
   • 2013, Leona Davis, Past, Future, and End, FriesenPress, page 33:

     After I got out of the mental institution I was looking at t.v. show I was looking it a teenage girl who was a cutter her arm look just like my arm.

10. (medicine, colloquial, slang, humorous or derogatory) A surgeon.

    Synonym: slasher

11. An animal yielding inferior meat, with little or no external fat and marbling.

    Coordinate terms: canner, darkcutter

    • 1905, United States. Bureau of Corporations, Report of the Commissioner of Corporations on the Beef Industry, page 89:

      Bulls and cows used for breeding, when finally sent to market, are inferior for dressed-beef production. Bulls are demanded especially for sausage and similar products. Cows are largely used as cutters and canners […]

12. (obsolete) An officer in the exchequer who notes by cutting on the tallies the sums paid.
13. (obsolete) A ruffian; a bravo; a destroyer.
    • Martin Parker, A True Tale of Robin Hood

      So being outlaw'd (as 'tis told), / He with a crew went forth / Of lusty cutters, bold and strong, / And robbed in the north.

    • 1633, A Match at Midnight (disputed authorship)

      He's out of cash, and thou know'st by cutter's law, / We are bound to relieve one another.

14. (obsolete) A kind of soft yellow brick, easily cut, and used for facework.
15. A light sleigh drawn by one horse.
    • 2007, Carrie A. Meyer, Days on the Family Farm, U of Minnesota Press, page 55:

      Throughout much of the winter, the sled or the cutter was the vehicle of choice. Emily and Joseph had a cutter, for traveling in style in snow.

16. (television) A flag or similar instrument for blocking light.
    • 2012, John Jackman, Lighting for Digital Video and Television, page 86:

      Flags and other cutters allow the DP or gaffer to throw large controlled shadows on parts of the scene.

17. (MLE) A knife.
18. (Maine) An active child.

    Synonyms: splash, splasher, jooker, nank, shank, bassy, rambo, pokey, chete, ying

    • 2017 July 25, Farley (lyrics and music), “Out Here”‎, 0:42–0:47:

      Late night, take a flow, tryna find the rats
      Twelve inch cutter in and out, then Imma ride them back

    • 2021 August 16, (Mali Strip) Killa Kurse x AR x Rondo (lyrics and music), “Buck aii LGR diss”‎, 1:23–1:28:

      Hop out the ride with things and stuff
      Back the longest cutter, watch him cut him, [grate their neek trips?] up

    • 2021 November 29, KMulla (lyrics and music), “Mutual Feeling”‎, 1:24–1:27:

      […] swing my cutter
      Get man down if he is on my brother

19. (intactivism, derogatory) A supporter of infant circumcision or female genital mutilation; pro-circumcisionist.

Cutter (sense 15)

• Audio (CAN)

  (file)

cutter m (plural cutters)

1. utility knife, box cutter, Stanley knife (tool used to cut)

   Synonyms: couteau à lame rétractable, (Canada) exacto

2. (nautical) cutter (vessel)

• “cutter”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Unadapted borrowing from English cutter.

cutter m

1. utility knife, box cutter, Stanley knife (tool used to cut)

   Synonyms: taglierino, trincetto

2. (nautical) cutter (vessel)

cutter n (plural cuttere)

1. Alternative form of cuter