Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to compete in business.

1860

Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn).

2. to manage, to achieve; usu. as cut it v.³ (1)

1903		‘Hugh McHugh’ I Need The Money 19: Uncle Peter just cut off a cackle and said he knew his business.
1957		H. Simmons Corner Boy 61: Mama [...] cuts some mean hours.
1967		(con. 1920s) J. Thompson South of Heaven (1994) 94: That’s still the understanding, as long as you cut the stuff.
1969		H. Ellison ‘A Boy and his Dog’ in Beast that Shouted Love (1976) 181: I can’t cut the jock-and-boxer scene.
1981		M. Baker Nam (1982) 69: If you couldn’t cut something, nobody took anything into consideration. A dog-eat-dog environment.
a.1985		‘Open Book’ in G. Logsdon Whorehouse Bells Were Ringing (1995) 112: He’s bothered by Mexican heartburn / with protruding piles and gut; / A red hot tamale is right down his alley, / ’tis a diet his ass hole can’t cut.
2009		W.D. Myers Dope Sick 24: I looked over the line and knew it wasn’t going to happen. [...] ‘I can’t cut this,’ I said to Maurice. ‘I’ll come back later’ .

3. (US black) to surpass, to outdo; thus cutting n.

1936		A.E. Duckett ‘Truckin ’round Brooklyn’ in N.Y. Age 6 June 6/7: You’re cuttin’ Claude, / You’re just ‘too much’.
1937		H.B. Webb ‘Sl. of Jazz’ in AS XII:3 182: Musicians vie with one another to see who can blow the hotter lick. The winner is said to have cut the loser.
1938		Pittsburgh Courier (PA) 23 July 11/1: Leonard Harper’s present local review cut anything’s he’s done in many moons.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 148: The idea was usually to try and cut each other, each one trying to outdo the others.
1958		J.C. Holmes Horn 18: For ‘cutting’ was, after all, only the Indian wrestling of lost boyhood summers, and the trick was getting your man off balance.
1965		L. Bruce How to Talk Dirty 186: Lyndon Johnson could cut Schopenhauer mind-wise.
1987		C. Griffiin q. in Firestone Swing, Swing, Swing (1993) 192: ‘We always tuned up a little sharper than the rest of the band to make it more brilliant [...] We could cut better that way.
1994		R.P. McNamara Times Square Hustler 68: They play the sometimes dangerous game of ‘cutting,’ or insulting each other.
2002		‘Touré’ Portable Promised Land (ms.) 50: Sugar Lips became even mo the celebrity than he’d been after he’d cut Bird.
2019		in Conforth & Wardlow Up Jumped the Devil 187: But you know the guys had an act of cutting heads. You know, you hit up on a guy that’s supposed to be good, you supposed to beat him playing [He] wanted me to go to Helena and cut Robert’s [i.e. Johnson] head, outdo him and steal his crown away from him.

4. (US campus) to understand.

1966		Current Sl. I:2 2/2: Cut, v. to understand.
1973		Buerkle & Barker Bourbon Street Black 75: ‘[T]he books their sidemen had to cut’ (scores they had to read) more and more required sight reading of high proficiency.

5. to be convincing, to be as one wishes.

1986

C. Hiaasen Tourist Season (1987) 35: ‘Yeah, and she’s seventy-five percent sure it was him.’ ‘Seventy-five won’t cut in court, Al.’.

6. to break wind.

2000		F. Kellerman Stalker (2001) 500: I’ll cut you down as easily as I’ll cut a fart. You get it?
1985		(con. 1969–70) D. Bodey F.N.G. (1988) 45: He bends up to flip the tape over and cuts a fart.

7. see cut a deal under deal n.¹