13 English PHRASAL VERBS with "cut"

Hi, everybody. Welcome to www.engvid.com. I'm Adam. In today's video, I'm going to give you some more phrasal verbs for you guys to add to your collection of your understanding, vocab, etc. So, again, what is a phrasal verb? It's a combination of a verb with a preposition. And again, as with most phrasal verbs, they will mostly have more than one meaning. And some of these meanings you can't really guess because they're completely unrelated to the words that are combined. So, today, we're looking at phrasal verbs with cut. So, cut, like, with a knife or cut with scissors, and whatever other prepositions and what they mean. So, let's begin. Cut out. So, now, there's always the literal meaning. Most phrasal verbs have a literal meaning, which is the two words, as they mean individually, put them together. They keep their meaning, but they work together somehow. So, if you cut something out, you're literally cutting a piece out of a bigger piece. So, think about a coupon. You want to go shopping for some groceries, and you see coupons in a magazine. So, you take scissors and you cut out the coupon, cut out the little piece. Very straightforward. Now, a few other meanings. Cut out. If you want to cut something out, you want it to stop. So, generally, we will say to someone, cut it out, or cut out your spending. So, stop, basically. And when we say cut it out, we often use with a exclamation mark. Cut it out. Stop. That's a bit of a command, right? Now, what else does cut out mean? How does other meanings? If something stops working, especially when we're talking about an engine or a machine. So, the car is running, and then suddenly the engine cuts out. It just stops working. Or if you're on a telephone call, and you're talking, talking, and then the call cuts out. It means the transmission suddenly stopped. Okay? So, that's another meaning of cut out. Another meaning that's a little bit trickier to explain is basically have an ability. And we're talking about people. So, some people are cut out for some professions, and some people are just not cut out for that profession. So, for example, I'm not very good with numbers. So, I'm not cut out to be an accountant, or I'm not cut out for accounting. I'm not really able to do it. I'm not suited for this profession, right? Some people are cut out for it. Some people are not cut out for it. So, those are the main meanings of cut out. Let's move on. Cut in, again, also has a few meanings. You can cut into something with a knife, very literal. But then the other meanings you have to be careful about. Let's start with a lineup. You go to the bank. You go to the bank, and there's a long line to the teller. But you're in a hurry, you don't want to wait. So, you go a little bit to the front of the line, and you try to cut into the line. It means you're going in ahead of your place. You're joining the line where it's not your place. Usually, people will be very angry and kick you out of the line anyway, and send you to the back. Same with speech or some... Any sort of process or development of something. If you cut in, you interrupt. So, I am speaking to a friend, and somebody cuts in, means they join the conversation uninvited, and they start talking, and they disturb or they interrupt mine and my friend's conversation. In the same way, if I'm speaking too much, like let's say I'm giving a presentation, and I'm talking, talking, talking, and then my boss will cut in, means he will just interrupt my speech and tell me, okay, too much. I could also use cut off. In this case, my boss will just cut me off. He will just stop me from speaking, and my speech is finished before it's finished, really. It's interrupted, okay? I will get to cut off in a moment. Another meaning of cut in, if two people are dancing together, like the man and the woman are dancing, or whoever is dancing, and somebody wants to cut in, means they want to take one of the dance partners and dance with him or her. So, if I see my friend and his girlfriend dancing, and I say, can I cut in? And I take my friend's girlfriend, and I start dancing with her. But we're friends, so it's all good. He's not angry with me, so it's okay. That's more or less cut in. Now, keep in mind, I'm not giving you all the different meanings of all the prepositions, because there really are a lot of them. I'm giving you the main ones that you can use in everyday situations. Cut down. Let's move to the next one. Cut down. So, the most literal meaning, the most straightforward, is if you're talking about a tree, and you take an ax, and you... And the tree goes down, so you cut it down, right? Very straightforward. If something is hanging, let's say, on a wall or from the ceiling, and you take a knife, and you cut the string, and you cut it down, you bring it down. So, very straightforward. If you cut down on consumption... So, you can use on or not. If you're using on, you're talking about something specific. If you're using just cut down, the idea is already mentioned. So, for example, somebody drinks too much alcohol, and he's... Maybe he got sick, so he went to the doctor, and the doctor said the amount of alcohol you're drinking is dangerous, you need to cut down. Or you need to cut down on your drinking, very specifically, right? If it's mentioned before, cut down. If it's mentioned after, cut down on something. Reduce the consumption of, okay? Now, a good expression, you can... This is SO means someone. You can cut someone down to size. This is a bit of an idiom, but it uses the phrasal verb to begin with. If you cut someone down to size, it means you bring them to the level where they're actually at. So, some people have a big ego, and they think they are the best, or they think they are the strongest, or the fastest, or the most successful. So, you can say something or do something to show them that they're not as good as they think, right? So, you're cutting them down to size, you're bringing them down to a realistic level. And this is a little bit of an attack. They won't like you for doing that, obviously, but some people need to be cut down to size because they have too much ego. Okay. Let's stop with that one. Let's go on to cut up. So, cut up. You can't cut a tree up, so there's no actual literal meaning. If you cut something up, you just chop it into pieces, for example, with a knife. So, you can cut it up. That's a more literal meaning of cut up. If you cut someone up, you can take a knife and injure them with... Like, put slices into them and cuts. Don't do that. It's not very nice. But if you cut someone up, you can also be insulting them. So, instead of using a knife, you're going to be using your tongue, and you're going to cut their ego or you're going to cut their emotions. So, you're insulting them, you're attacking them, but not physically. It could be emotionally as well. Now, if we're talking about comedy, somebody cut me up means made me laugh very hard. I was laughing so hard that my stomach got cut and I spilled out. So, that person, that comedian is a cut up. Okay. Just, again, not very common, but nice to know anyway. So, that's cut up. Let's move on. Cut across. The most common use of this is to basically take a shortcut. So, let's say I work in this building and my company has an office in the building across to the park on the other side of the park. I could walk around the park or I could just cut across. Basically, make a straight line for right through. Cut through can mean the same thing. Instead of going around, you're going through. But if you're talking about a specific area like a park or a field or a street, you just cut across instead of going around. You can cut through a building. It means you go in one entrance, you go out the other entrance instead of going around. You can't cut across a building. A building is a structure. Only open areas you can cut across. Cut across can also mean that something affects many groups or many different types of people or groups or companies, etc. So, the government, let's say, introduces a policy that will stop people from smoking. But the new rules cut across many areas or affects many areas. For example, businesses. If a lot of bars, if people can't smoke in the bars, then the bars will lose a lot of business. So, this policy cuts across many sectors of the economy, not just smokers, bar owners, club owners, restaurant owners, other people who attract that type of customer. So, this policy cuts across many economic areas, many economic sectors. Okay. So, that's it for cut across. Cut through, as I mentioned, you can go through like a straight line instead of around. In the same way, you can cut through things to get to the main point. Now, I'll give you an example. In a government, again, there's a lot of bureaucracy. So, if you want something done, you need to go to this office, get a signature or a stamp, then take that paper, go to the other office, get a stamp, stamp, stamp, stamp. By the time something is done, maybe 20 people have touched this piece of paper. So, some politician realized we're wasting time, we're wasting money. So, he changed the system. He just cut through all the bureaucracy. He cut through all the steps just to make it a very straight line from what you need to how to get it, right? I'm going to give you an expression now. It's not very nice. It uses some bad language, but it's very commonly used. People often say they try to cut through the crap. Now, crap is not a very good word, but it's not a very bad word either. So, if somebody is telling you a story, like, let's say I came late to work, and my boss is saying, why are you late to work? I said, oh, you know, I had... There was traffic, and then I had to go stop here to drop off this, and my child was sick, and I... So, the boss said, let's cut through the crap. Don't come late here again. Basically, get rid of all the useless things and get to the point. So, very good expression, cut through. Let's move cut into. So, again, very literally, you can cut into something with a knife, with a saw, with scissors, whatever, or you can cut into someone. It's very similar to cut up. If you cut into someone, means you go right into the heart of where it matters to them. It doesn't necessarily mean insult, but you affect them in a way that makes them very nervous, or very scared, or very angry, okay? You cut into them, you... Mostly, it means attack, but it doesn't have to mean attack. You can get right to the heart of who they are, and it makes them a little bit nervous. Not the most commonly used thing, but you can also cut into a situation. Means you analyze very quickly what's the issue, and then you take care of it. Again, be careful with that one and using it. Cut off. Cut off also has quite a few uses. Let's start with... To cut off means to stop also, but it's not like cut out stop. Cut off means a very sudden interruption, like... So, I said before, like, with a speech. If my boss cuts me off, he just makes me stop speaking. So, if you cut someone off, or if you cut something off, you just suddenly make it stop. Cut out can stop by itself. Cut off means you force it to stop, especially a process. If somebody cuts you off on the street, means they drive right in front of you very suddenly and very quickly, and you have to slam your brakes. So, that person cut you off. If you're... I guess if your parents or if you're somebody who gives you money suddenly decides to cut you off, it means they stop the flow of money. They're not going to give you any more money. So, the income stream was cut off. And you can say the same thing about a relationship. So, I have a friend, and this friend is always very negative, and always complaining, and always saying very nasty things. And I realized that this person is not really my friend. So, I cut him or her off. Means I break the relationship. I separate the relationship. And speaking of separate, you can also isolate someone. You can cut them off from the group. You can separate them or isolate them. So, in a classroom, if there's one student who's very disruptive, if I'm the teacher, I cut him off. I move him to the back of the class to sit by himself and be quiet and not disturb the other students. So, he's cut off. He's isolated. Okay. So, that's it for cut off. Let's move on. Cut back. Cut back is very similar to cut down, but cut down means you reduce the consumption of something. Cut back just means also reduce, but reduce the amount. So, cut back the number of staff. You don't cut down on staff. You cut back the number of staff. So, if I'm a company and I'm trying to save money, one of the things I can do is reduce the salary. So, how do I do that? I cut back on payroll. And cut back on, you can be more specific. When I use cut back on, it's more specifically about spending, about expenditure. Cut back on, let's say, meat. Like, let's say I eat a lot of steak. Steak is very expensive. I want to save money. I cut back on steaks, means I reduce my spending on steaks. But I cut back the number of steaks I eat, the amount of steaks. Cut back on for the money, cut back for the amount of the thing itself. You can also cut back, means basically just go back. So, you're going something and then you cut back. Very straightforward. I think that's it for cut back for now. Now, this is not a phrasal verb. But what I want to mention is that sometimes you'll see verbs and prepositions joined. This is called just a simple collocation. These are also collocations, but because they're a specific type, we call them phrasal verbs. This is a collocation where there's no phrasal verb because this is not a verb. You'll notice the article. This is a noun. This expression means better than average. So, if someone is a cut above, means he's a little bit better than other people around him, right? Or if the thing is a little bit better than the other things in the category, it's a cut above. Slightly better than its peers or its competitors or comparable things, right? So, you can buy two cars from the same company, but this one has a few extra features which makes it a cut above this one in terms of quality or in terms of value for the money, okay? So, keep in mind, it's not always a phrasal verb. It could just be a simple collocation as well. So, I hope these are a little bit helpful. If you have any questions about any of these phrasal verbs, please go to www.engvid.com. In the comments section, you can ask all the questions you like. I'll be happy to answer them. There's also a quiz where you can test your understanding of all these phrasal verbs. And that's it. I hope you liked the video. If you did, give me a like. Don't forget to subscribe to my channel, and don't forget to ring the bell if you want notifications for future videos. And come back to see those future videos where I'll give you some more phrasals, other vocab, grammar, etc. Okay? I'll see you again soon. Bye-bye.