verbal phr. (colloquial).—To debar; deprive of advantage; supersede. Cf., CUT, verb, sense 5. [Originally a nautical term; from CUTTING OUT a ship in an enemy’s port.]
1779. R. CUMBERLAND, The Wheel of Fortune, Act iv., Sc. 3. I suspect your heart inclines to Captain Woodville; and now he is come to England, I suppose I am likely to be CUT OUT.
1856. C. BRONTË, The Professor, ch. iii. There’s Waddy—Sam Waddy—making up to her; won’t I CUT HIM OUT?
1863. CAROLINE NORTON, Lost and Saved, p. 182. One woman has often CUT ANOTHER OUT, whose superiority, if dissected and analysed, would be found to be composed of the carriage that whirled her up to the door, the nimble footman who rapped at it, the soft carpet on the hand, some staircase, the drawing-room to which it led, and the gilt stand full of geraniums, heliotropes, and roses in the curtained window.
1864. G. A. LAWRENCE, Guy Livingstone, ch. xxv. Here, as elsewhere, she pursued her favourite amusement, remorselessly. Fallowfield called it ‘her CUTTING OUT expeditions.’ She used to watch till a mother and daughter had, between them, secured a good matrimonial prize, and then employ her fascinations on the captured one.
